


Welcome Home

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29901387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: John and his team are on a routine mission to an alien planet and John touches some alien rocks.He ends up imprinted with the soul of an Ancient teenage girl, and in order to help her Ascend, he must help her achieve her dying wish.Which was to fall in love.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25
Collections: Romancing McShep 2021





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TangoTabby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TangoTabby/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Stacked Stones and Alien Surprises](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29953191) by [TangoTabby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TangoTabby/pseuds/TangoTabby). 



> So much gratitude to the phenomenal Brumeier for her beta assistance!
> 
> And most of all, so much gratitude for the amazing art and inspiration for this story from TangoTabby, and to melagan for running this fest once again!

While AR-1 was a little above and beyond a regular science recon mission to an empty planet, the planet had been flagged in the database as potentially dangerous — and with a known Wraith battle outpost to boot — so it made sense to send the frontline team there, with Ronon Dex, expert Wraith killer, in their ranks. John was the team leader, so he took point through the gate. Teyla and Rodney fanned out behind him, Rodney with his LSD in hand, Teyla with her weapons at the ready, and Ronon had their six, though with the gate right behind them, chances of anyone getting the drop on them from behind were rare.

But one could never tell, and there was always the chance of attack from above.

“Wow. Trees,” John said.

“Channeling your inner O’Neill much?” Rodney asked, but then he too looked up.

And up.

And up.

“You know, whenever people think about prehistory, they mostly talk about megafauna, but sometimes we forget about megaflora,” John said. “Animals have gotten smaller over time, but so have plants. Never imagined that redwood trees would be, you know, small. Compared to other trees.”

“You think the Earth version of redwood trees are the smaller version?” Rodney asked.

“Maybe?” John said. “Or maybe they’re like goldfish? Never got the room to get as big as they could.”

Rodney glanced at Teyla. “Have you ever seen trees like this before?”

She shook her head. “I have not. I have never heard legends either. Ronon?”

“Heard legends,” he said. “Trees on Sateda were regular-sized.”

“Do you think giant trees means giant tree-creatures to go with them?” Rodney asked.

John considered. “Should we go back through the gate and get a botanist and a zoologist?”

That made Rodney scowl and poke at his LSD. “No. I’m not reading any major animal life signs anyway.” He’d figured out how to tune it to check for large predators in addition to other human and Wraith life forms, after the encounter with Sam the Not-quite-whale.

John nodded.“All right. Let’s continue.”

Recon was standard, something John could do in his sleep — straight out from the gate (gate-north, as all teams had learned to call it), then in a grid pattern to the east (right of the gate), then around to the south (directly behind the gate), around to the west (left of the gate), and finally back around to the north, till they’d covered the area in a five-klick square around the gate or found something worth exploring further. If they didn’t find anything, they’d fall back to the gate and mark the planet for further exploration via drone outfitted with a long-range LSD scanner, once those had been built properly.

They made it about two klicks north from the gate when they encountered a pile of rocks.

“This looks deliberate,” Rodney said. The stones were smooth and rounded but descending in size, piled one atop another, several piles clustered close together. The biggest rock at the base was more like a small boulder. 

Ronon and Teyla fanned out, moving to protect Rodney, but John tapped Teyla’s shoulder and moved to take her place.

“You recognize these?” he asked. “On Earth much smaller versions are usually used to mark hiking trails in national parks, so people know which way to go but signs aren’t necessary and painted markings don’t damage natural rock formations.”

“Really?” Rodney asked.

John said, “I’ve hiked a national park or two in my time.”

Rodney said, “Oh. Well, that actually sounds quite practical.”

“Sometimes they’re also used to mark hunting trails in the forest,” John said.

Teyla nodded, “Yes, that is how I am familiar with them, though they are also sometimes used to mark walking paths that are not used often. Ronon?”

He made a wordless sound of agreement. Then he said, “They’re also grave markers. When you don’t have time to carve a proper marker, or make a formal burial.”

Rodney considered. “That’s true. Stone cairns are a traditional way to bury dead.”

John cast him a look. “Who’s the anthropologist now?”

“My last name is McKay. It’s Scottish. I’m not completely ignorant of my heritage,” Rodney said.

John conceded the point with a nod — and briefly imagined Rodney in a kilt. 

“Then this place was once inhabited by humans,” Teyla said. “Or perhaps there was a great battle here?”

“We should be respectful,” Ronon said.

John nodded his agreement. He knew what it meant, for men and women to lose their lives on battlefields far from home.

Rodney popped open one of his vest pockets and fished out the small digital camera that someone in Anthropology had foisted upon him so he could take some footage of the area, just in case. It could have some useful military recon value, and even though he rolled his eyes, John noticed that he did his best to take steady footage, zoomed in and checked the structural integrity of the stone piles. 

John made a mental tally of how many of the structures there were, but he figured the final number didn’t matter. Someone in Anthro could probably back-calculate what the population of the planet had originally been like, assuming that the stone structures were actually burial markers and this was the population’s primary burial ground and not a secondary burial site after a battle.

Was it a Wraith burial site? Did the Wraith have burial rituals for their dead? They were, after all, a warrior culture, and battle was an important part of their lifestyle. Death was a big part of their existence. Did they honor it?

Probably not. They fed on each other, after all.

But they could also give life to each other, and others.

Oh hell. Rodney would probably kill John if he knew all the Anthro-style thoughts swirling in John’s head.

“There’s a sign over here,” Ronon said. “You can read Ancient, can’t you, McKay?”

Rodney could, because it was useful for understanding Ancient Tech, and he’d shout at anyone who suggested it was an Anthro-style or Linguist-style skill. That it had roots in Latin and Rodney could speak French on account of being Canadian meant he’d learnt the language easily.

Rodney swore at Zelenka in French when Zelenka swore at him in Czech.

John never had told Rodney that he spoke fluent French too, on account of having gone to fancy private schools growing up. French was a useful language for NATO allies, after all.

John had also never told Rodney that he liked it when Rodney spoke French. 

“Better get footage of it for Anthro,” John said.

Rodney rolled his eyes at John from behind the camera but obediently ambled over to where Ronon was obligingly holding some foliage out of the way of a stone carving.

John and Teyla shifted to cover the two of them.

“It’s pretty faded, but it is definitely Ancient,” Rodney said. “Doesn’t look like whoever wrote it was a native speaker. Or maybe they had bad writing? Or maybe it’s a different dialect? An older version of the language? Not sure. Don’t really care.”

“What’s it say?” Ronon asked.

“Well, it’s not a direct translation, obviously — there’s not really such thing as a _direct translation_ for anything —”

“The best you can manage will be helpful,” Teyla said. “Do we face any dangers if we explore this area further?”

“Are there any curses?” Ronon pressed.

“It just says something like _Welcome, kind ones, and thank you for your generosity in letting us rest in peace_ or something sentimental like that,” Rodney said.

Ronon’s expression sobered. “So it is a burial ground or memorial place.

Rodney nodded. “I guess so.”

“Tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams,” John said.

“Pretty sure that’s not what that poem is about,” Rodney said.

“A graveyard is sort of full of everyone’s unfulfilled dreams,” John said. “When you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes, right? Here we walk, amidst a bunch of lives flashing.”

Teyla eyed him. “How very philosophical of you, John.”

“I’ve nearly died a bunch of times, so, you know. Seen my life flash in front of my eyes a lot. All the beers I never drank. All the games of golf I never played,” John joked. He glanced at Rodney.

All the words he never dared to say.

“They were people, just like us,” Ronon said. “They probably wanted the same things as us.”

“True,” John said. He reached out toward a particularly interesting cairn, one with rounded stones of an unusual yellow color — and was hit with a flash of blue light.

Familiar blue light.

Ancient tech blue light.

He heard all his teammates shout his name, but their voices were distant, faded, like his head was wrapped in cotton. He stumbled, and hands on his elbows caught him, steadied him.

“Sheppard! Can you hear us?”

“John, are you hurt?”

“Dammit, Colonel, why would you _touch_ one of the alien rocks?”

John tried to say, “It was just a rock,” but his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and his vision was dancing with sparks.

And then a girl said brightly, “Thanks for accepting my final burden!”

And John swooned.

* * *

When he came to several moments later, he was lying on the ground, his head on Rodney’s lap, and gazing up at the blue sky. Skies on alien planets looked pretty much the same as skies on Earth. The leaves on the giant alien trees still looked giant, though.

“Ronon went back to the gate to dial for help,” Teyla said.

“Great,” John said.

“How do you feel?” Rodney asked.

“Okay,” John said.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” a girl said.

John blinked. She was standing beside Teyla and also peering at him. She looked like she was sixteen or seventeen and dark-skinned, dark-haired, looked a bit like Chaya, was wearing a similar pale flowy dress with fancy floral lace along the neckline. Her face was heart-shaped, and she had round cheeks and dimples.

“Who are you?” John asked.

“I am Teyla Emmagan, your teammate,” Teyla said.

Rodney shouted, “Ronon, tell them to get here stat, he has amnesia!”

“Not you, Teyla, the girl next to you.”

Teyla looked right at the girl and said, “There is no one beside me.”

John said, “There’s a girl standing next to you.”

Rodney shouted, “He doesn’t have amnesia, he’s lost his mind!”

The girl said, “I’m Brona. And no one else can see me, because I’m dead.”

John said, “I’ve lost my mind. I’m seeing ghosts.”

“I’m not a ghost,” Brona said, testing the word carefully, “whatever that is. I’m the digital imprint of a girl named Brona, who died and was interred beneath that marker, there.” She straightened and turned, pointed to the cairn that John had touched. “And you’re the Kind One who has accepted her final burden. But that’s only if you want to get really technical. You can just think of _me_ as Brona, and that’ll make things easier. By interacting with me, you can complete her unfinished business, and then she can move on and Ascend.”

John closed his eyes and groaned. “You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

“John, what is wrong?” Teyla asked.

“I’m being haunted by the ghost of a teenage girl who wants to ascend, and to help her ascend I have to help her with her unfinished business,” John said.

“What the hell?” Rodney said.

“You’re telling me,” John muttered. He opened one eye, and sure enough, the digital ghost of Brona was still standing beside Teyla. “So if you’re not really a ghost and you’re just a digital imprint, how am I seeing you?”

“I’m imprinted in your brain, of course.”

John sat bolt upright. “Oh _hell_ no. I’ve been imprinted against my will before, and I am _not_ okay with this. If you’re going to possess me and — and paint my nails or something, I am _out._ I’ll get Keller to cut you out of my head or whatever.”

Brona’s eyes went wide, filled with tears. “No no no, please don’t! I would never possess you. It doesn’t work like that. You’re just the only person who can see me. Please don’t delete me. I just need you to help me ascend. I was killed by the Wraith before I had the chance, but I made this imprint before I went into battle just in case.”

John narrowed his eyes. “Before you went into battle? How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Brona said in a small voice.

“John, there’s no one there,” Rodney said.

“Perhaps there is someone there only he can see,” Teyla said.

“Well then he might also be the only person who can defend himself from that creature,” Rodney said.

“What’s this about Sheppard losing his mind?” Keller asked, jogging into the clearing.

Ronon trotted behind her, carrying her massive medical kit. 

“I’ve been imprinted against my will,” John said. “With someone’s last will and testament, it seems.”

Keller stared at him.

“I think this entire place is full of devices that imprint people,” John said. “We’d better get out of here fast. No one touch anything, not even the rocks.”

Ronon hauled John to his feet. Keller checked him over with her medical scanner.

“You are running a slight fever, and I am seeing some unusual brain activity. Let’s get you back to the infirmary,” she said. She handed out little plastic booties and gloves to everyone, and they trooped back to the gate.

Brona followed along with them. “What’s Atlantis?”

“You’ve never heard of Atlantis?” John said.

“Who’s he talking to?” Keller asked.

“The entity who imprinted on him,” Rodney said. “Apparently the entity died in battle.”

“Her name is Brona,” John said, “and she was sixteen when she went to battle against the Wraith.”

Teyla and Ronon immediately looked very solemn, because both of them had started battling the Wraith when they were in their teens and started training for it even younger.

“What does Brona want?” Keller asked.

John turned to her. “What _do_ you want?”

“I want to fall in love.”

* * *

John sat on an examination table in the infirmary, his teammates — and Brona — standing around him while Keller and a nurse checked him over, the nurse reviewing his vital signs while Keller did a more detailed scan with an Ancient medical scanner.

“Apart from the fever and the elevated brain activity, I’m not detecting any foreign bodies in your brain or bloodstream,” Keller said. “So I can’t go in and remove this imprint from your system with a blood transfusion or by any other chemical means that I’m aware of.”

John eyed Keller, then Rodney. “So you believe me when I say I’m not crazy?”

Keller bit her lip. “You seem perfectly rational.”

“Apart from the fact that he’s talking to someone who isn’t there,” Rodney snapped. “You said there’s no foreign bodies in his brain or bloodstream.”

“If he’s been imprinted with another consciousness digitally, it’s a series of electrical signals, and those wouldn’t be picked up as foreign bodies,” Keller said. “His own consciousness is electrical signals.”

“Then send him to Dr. Moon and have her check him,” Rodney said.

 _“I’m_ his medical doctor, not you,” Keller said.

“While Rodney does have decision-making power over me in case I’m medically incapacitated, I’m not medically incapacited,” John said. “I just have Brona imprinted on my brain until I complete a task and help her ascend.”

Rodney turned to him. “Great. What’s the task? Let’s get it done and Brona can go on her merry way.”

Brona clapped her hands and looked delighted. She didn’t look at all like someone who’d gone to battle against the Wraith, but then she’d admitted she’d made this imprint prior to any battle experience. “Yes, I want to ascend!”

John eyed her. “But will this actually work if the actual Brona has been dead for, I don’t know, ten thousand years or more?”

Brona stared at him. _“How_ long?”

“Do the Ancients even believe in souls?” John looked at Teyla and Ronon. “The Ancestors, I mean. As far as Rodney is concerned, ascension is just another plane of existence, right? Existence in another energy state. Humans going from solid to, well, not liquid, we’re already two-thirds water as it is.”

Rodney stared at him. “Get Dr. Biro in here. I want a second opinion on John, and then I want Dr. Moon to look at him.”

“Dr. Biro is a virologist,” Keller said, “and _Colonel Sheppard_ is the one who asks for a second opinion, not you.” She turned to John. “I’m keeping you for observation for twenty-eight hours, and I’m recommending you be stood down from duty for then.”

John nodded and tapped his radio. “Lorne, come to the infirmary.”

Lorne’s response was immediate and courteous, because he was Lorne. “Roger that, sir.”

Of course, Lorne had probably heard there was an incident off-world, and in addition to preparing for any fallout, he was probably also taking bets as to the nature and extent of the incident. When he arrived, he looked perfectly turned out in his uniform, and he also had his tablet stylus tucked behind his ear, which gave him a bit of an artsy air.

“Reporting as ordered, sir.”

“You’re in command while I’m stood down, Major.”

Lorne inclined his head. “Yes, sir. Any recommendations for my command, sir?”

“Send a team to check the planet we were just on. Take some non-carriers to check the tech in the cemetery.”

Lorne nodded again. “Roger that, sir.” He tapped his radio. “AR-4, I need you to escort Dr. Zelenka to MK6-315 to do a secondary sweep. Take a fire team of flatscans with you. Don’t touch the rocks.”

“Flatscans?” John asked.

“Didn’t you read X-Men when you were a kid, sir?” 

“You didn’t strike me as the comic type, Major.”

Lorne shrugged and said, “We all have hobbies, sir. I appreciated the art.” There was a certain wry twist to his mouth that suggested he appreciated more than the art.

“Dismissed,” John said, and Lorne inclined his head one more time and left the infirmary.

“I still think Dr. Moon should look at him,” Rodney said.

Keller took a deep breath. She tapped her radio. “Geri, can you please come do a quick orientation check on a patient? Just to make sure he hasn’t suffered a psychotic break. Thanks.”

“You’re not crazy,” Brona said to John. She bit her lip. “Has it really been ten thousand years since I died?”

“Maybe,” John said. “Rodney said the writing on the sign in your cemetery was...bad? Maybe a different dialect of Ancient? So maybe it’s been longer? Or maybe less if your writing was the result of the language evolving?”

Dr. Moon arrived then. “Jennifer, good afternoon. How may I assist you?”

“Colonel Sheppard was affected by Ancient tech during a mission offworld, and there are some concerns that he’s suffered a psychotic break,” Jennifer said.

“He’s talking to someone who isn’t there,” Rodney said.

“He’s claiming that the tech imprinted him with the memories of an Ancient girl named Brona who died during battle with the Wraith, and she’s communicating her last wishes to him so he can assist her with ascension,” Keller said. “Besides a slight fever and some elevated brain activity, I’m not seeing any evidence of foreign bodies in his brain or blood. Besides the claim that he’s been imprinted with an alien consciousness, as it were, he has suffered no injury.”

Dr. Moon looked John up and down, her gaze calm and assessing. “Of course. Colonel, come to my office.”

Rodney made a noise of protest, but John was relieved to be out of his presence, because he didn’t think he could fully explain the situation with Rodney around.

Teyla said, “Let Dr. Moon do her job.”

“It’s what you wanted,” Ronon added.

John hopped off the cot and followed Dr. Moon out of the infirmary and down the hall to her office. She didn’t use Dr. Heightmeyer’s old office, for which John was glad, because he’d respected and even liked Kate, who’d survived that first year of the expedition, and the way she’d come to her end had been terrible, and John didn’t like thinking about it much at all.

There was a lot John didn’t like thinking about.

Dr. Moon had a really comfy couch, and she sat kitty corner to him, not opposite him, in a comfy-looking papasan chair, cross-legged. She didn’t take notes, used a recorder instead, and while her focus could be unnerving, during annual evaluations she just seemed like she was a friendly listener, which John appreciated.

She ran through the basic questions so he was properly identified at the start of the recording, and then the basic questions so he could establish that he was properly oriented as to person, place, and time.

“I’m not crazy,” he said. “But of course that’s what crazy people say. And also crazy is a politically incorrect term and I’ve used it three times in your office and I’m very sorry. I haven’t suffered a psychotic break, either.” 

Brona had tagged along with John every step of the way. She’d never heard of Atlantis, and everything was new to her. She couldn’t touch anything, because she was incorporeal in a sense, but because she was in John’s brain she was limited by his perceptions of the world, so she could go around and _look_ at things, and she was fascinated by everything.

She poked around Dr. Moon’s office, looked at the photos on her desk, out the window at her lovely view of the ocean and one of the piers, at the big soft rug where people could sit to meditate.

“The cemetery was some kind of special interment ground, and the stone cairns were built so young soldiers going off to war with the Wraith could leave an imprint of themselves behind and volunteers could accept the imprint and help them ascend,” John said. “I guess gene carriers triggered the tech? And I triggered the cairn for a teenage girl named Brona.”

Dr. Moon nodded. “Okay. That does sound plausible, and rather unlike something you’d make up, even if you did have a psychotic break. All your previous evaluations have come up clean, and you haven’t undergone any particularly traumatic or stressful events that I’m aware of. Have you?”

“No worse than the Pegasus Galaxy usually throws at us,” John said.

“Pegasus Galaxy?” Brona asked.

“It’s what we call this galaxy,” John said. “I come from another galaxy.”

Dr. Moon tilted her head. “You speak aloud to her. If she’s in her head, can you not speak to her internally? It would probably unnerve others less.”

“So you believe me?”

“You’re a very intelligent man, and you’ve been through a lot of stress, and if you were to have a sudden and delayed psychotic break — and there’s no reason Ancient tech couldn’t force a break on you, as some kind of trap or malfunction — you could create an elaborate and reasonable-sounding scenario,” Dr. Moon said.

“I’m not crazy,” John insisted. “Listen, Brona says I have to help her with her unfinished business and she can move on, but she didn’t even realize she’s been dead for possibly millennia. How about we prove I’m not crazy? Brona can talk to someone in Anthro through me. We’ll look up her civilization and language in the database. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere, especially where she speaks Ancient, or at least writes it. And her outfit looks kinda familiar, so if she shared fashion trends with the Ancients then their cultures had to have communicated or connected, right?”

“Or your brain connected them in forming your delusion,” Dr. Moon said, “but I accept your proposal. I’ll stay with you and supervise, of course.”

John nodded, frustrated. “That’s fine.”

Dr. Moon tapped her radio. “Dr. Peace, would you please come to my office? I have something to discuss with you.”

* * *

Dr. Peace was tall, the same height as John, and had vivid blue eyes behind her glasses, curly dark hair, and a sweet smile.

She seemed unbothered by the request but genuinely concerned about John’s health.

“I hope you’re all right, Colonel. Let’s see what we can find in the database about post-death ascension assistance. Could be tricky, though. Back in the day if you went to the library and searched in the card catalogue for light bulbs you’d find nothing, but you’d find a plethora of information if you looked for incandescent bulbs, so. Let’s hope the Ancient database has a more intuitive search engine.” Dr. Peace pushed her glasses up her nose. “Good thing I took Latin for fun my senior year of college.”

“For fun?” John asked.

“This really hot history major was taking it, so a bunch of us took it,” Dr. Peace said. She smiled wryly. “Don’t tell me you’ve never done something dumb because someone was hot.”

John thought of the time he’d nearly dropped his entire tray of dinner because he’d looked across the dining hall and saw Rodney sketching something in the air while he argued with Zelenka and realized how beautiful Rodney’s hands were. “I’m human too.”

Brona said, “My planet is called Gaudeam.”

John relayed the information to Dr. Peace, who entered it into the database.

John hadn’t realized he’d held his breath till an entry popped up and he let it out.

“There is a planet with that name,” Dr. Peace said. She scanned the information. “Ah, here it is. Planet was conquered, and a Wraith battle outpost was established on it. The locals took it back, but not without suffering massive casualties, and they ended up sending kids as young as fourteen into battle.”

Brona said, “Some lied. They were twelve.” Her expression was drawn, sad, as she studied the text floating in the air above their heads.

John wondered why he couldn’t read it as well as Brona could if she was in his brain.

“That does track with what Colonel Sheppard told me,” Dr. Moon said. 

“So you’re satisfied I haven’t suffered a psychotic break?” John asked.

Dr. Moon tapped her radio. “Dr. Naoe to the database room.”

“Why Nagi?” Dr. Peace asked.

“To make sure Colonel Sheppard hasn’t previously accessed this information,” Dr. Moon said.

John sucked in another breath, frustrated. He turned to Dr. Peace. “Does it say anything about their imprint tech so they could try for ascension after death?”

Dr. Peace peered at the text. “No, but it does talk about kind ones bearing burdens after death…? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” Brona said. “You’re my Kind One.” She beamed at John.

“Yes, that is what I mean. Unfortunately,” John said. Then he considered. “Does it say how long ago the planet was wiped out?”

“Ten thousand years ago,” Dr. Peace said.

Brona’s eyes went wide. She burst into tears.

John swore.

Dr. Peace and Dr. Moon looked shocked.

John apologized, then turned to Brona. “Don’t cry. Look, ascension is just another state of existence, right? Your identity transforming into another type of energy? And energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form. Energy lasts forever. Ten thousand years is a drop in the bucket. It’s fine. Don’t cry. I’ll help you. Just please. Stop crying.”

Dr. Peace and Dr. Moon stared at him.

Dr. Naoe chose that moment to amble into the database room, massive headphones resting around his neck, bouncy techno music emitting from them. He, too, had vivid blue eyes. “What’s up?”

“Can you check the search history on the database and see who else has accessed this particular data entry?” Dr. Moon asked.

Dr. Naoe nodded. “Sure.” He raised his eyebrows at Dr. Peace, and she stepped aside. He tapped at the console. “No one besides Sei-sei today. Why?”

“Are you sure?”

“Unless you think someone is a better hacker than me — and no one is, don’t let McKay tell you otherwise — I’m sure,” Dr. Naoe said.

Dr. Moon turned to John. “You’re cleared.”

 _“Thank_ you,” John said. “Now, you’re a therapist. Help me comfort a teenage girl who just found out she’s been dead for ten thousand years.”

Dr. Naoe raised his eyebrows.

John’s radio crackled on. 

“Colonel, please come to the infirmary.” It was Lorne. “AR-4 ran into an incident offworld.”

“What kind of incident?” John asked.

Dr. Moon was radioing Dr. Keller to tell her John was clear.

“Well, it turns out that not all of Fire Team D is flatscans,” Lorne said. “And one of them has picked up an invisible friend too.”

“Be right there,” John said.

* * *

When he arrived in the infirmary, Lorne was there, along with AR-1, AR-4, and Fire Team D, all of whom were trying and failing to give Keller and her team a wide berth around a bed where one of Fire Team D, a Thai flight lieutenant named Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul but who everyone simply called Ten, was hunched over a sketchpad, pen flying over the page, and saying,

“Slow down! That’s not helpful.”

He was a bit of a language savant and spoke, in addition to his native Thai: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, and English, though he spoke English with a curious blend of both a British and an American accent.

“Lieutenant?” John asked.

Ten lifted his head. “Colonel Sheppard. I’m trying to help Aimon ascend. His final burden was a piece of art he never finished. I’m trying to recreate it, but as talented an artist as he was in life, he’s not very good at describing it, and he’s very impatient.” Ten glared at the empty air beside him.

“A piece of art?” John asked. He looked at Brona.

Her eyes lit up. “Aimon? I remember him!”

“Can you see him?” John asked.

She shook her head. “No, the only person who can see him is your friend Lieutenant.”

John sighed. “No, lieutenant isn’t his name, it’s his rank.”

Brona said, “Ask him how Aimon is doing.”

“Aimon is dead, same as you,” John flatly.

Brona pouted at him.

John sighed again. “Fine.” He cleared his throat. “Ten, how is Aimon doing? Brona wants to know.”

Ten didn’t pause in what he was drawing, which wasn’t anything John recognized but had intricate shading. “Aimon says he’s doing well and hello Brona and he hopes she’s doing well. Also he wants to know if she chose the dress with the lace or the pants with the top like a warrior.”

John blinked. “I —” He looked at Brona. “The dress with the lace.”

Brona twirled happily. “What did Aimon pick?”

“I am _not_ about to narrate a posthumous fashion show,” John said.

Keller said, “He has the same symptoms you had, Colonel.” She set her scanner aside. 

Dr. Moon said, “Colonel Sheppard is clear. No psychotic break.”

“Then John and Nine here really have been possessed by alien entities,” Rodney said.

“Ten,” Schuldig from Fire Team D snapped.

“Schuldig’s nickname is Nine, because someone always has to tell him _nein,”_ Michel from Fire Team D added, and there was laughter before Rodney glared at them all.

“If they’ve been possessed, then we need to get them unpossessed,” Rodney said.

“I thought it was exorcised,” Ronon said. “Like the movie. Pea soup?”

Fire Team D and AR-4 stared at him.

“What _have_ you been showing him, sir?” Lorne asked.

“Not me, for once,” John said.

It was Keller who raised her hand meekly. “We watched The Exorcist together.”

Fire Team D and AR-4 turned to her, surprised.

“What? I started college when I was sixteen and all the other girls in the dorm wanted to watch it but it was rated R and I was away from home for the first time and I was scared. I finally decided to watch it with Ronon because he had no cultural context for it and I figured it’d be less scary with someone who’d have no reason to be scared of it,” she said.

“How did he know about the pea soup?” John asked.

“My grandmother used to make pea soup, and I’d always heard the comparison. It was apt,” Keller said.

“Not helping,” Rodney snapped. “You’re supposed to be fixing John and Eleven.”

 _“Ten,”_ Fire Team D said.

“Done,” Ten said. He flipped the sketchbook around and held it up. “What do you think?”

John leaned in to peer at it. Even though he wasn’t an anthropologist and as a teen he’d always been bored at the gallery openings his parents had toted him to, because Sheppard Industries donated to the arts, he wasn’t totally devoid of interest in art, especially alien art.

But what Ten had drawn was ordinary.

A portrait of a young woman.

Not just any young woman.

Brona, just as she looked standing beside John, only instead of her flowing gown with the lace neckline and off-the-shoulder sleeves, she wore familiar-looking Ancient leathers, though they were slimmer-fitted and covered with what looked like samurai-style scale armor, for combat.

“It’s me,” Brona said. “I look pretty. Fierce. That must be my battle armor. I never got a chance to try it on — not before I recorded my imprint, at any rate. Aimon must have recorded his after he’d started training, at least.”

“She’s pretty,” Schuldig offered. He had blazing orange hair and a faint accent — Germanic. 

“That’s Brona,” John said.

“Someone should take a picture, for Anthro,” Lorne said absently.

Then Ten turned the sketchbook to the patch of empty air beside his bed. “Well? Are you satisfied?” He tilted his head, as if listening. He nodded, then turned to John. “Sir, where is Brona?”

John pointed to the space beside him, where Brona had stood unusually still, staring at the sketchbook. “She’s right here.”

Ten cleared his throat. “Brona, Aimon says you were his best friend, his sister-in-arms, his shieldmaiden, fierce and bright and brave. He says thank you, and that you saved him, and you were beautiful, and he wants you to be remembered forever, and that is his gift to you, and that —” He paused, cleared his throat again. “That you died in his arms.”

Brona pressed her hand to her chest, eyes wide and wet-bright. “But then how did Aimon die?”

“He doesn’t know, obviously,” John said in a low voice.

And then there was a faint humming sound. John cast about, searching for the source, one hand going for his sidearm, but it wasn’t in his thigh holster, because of course he was unarmed while he’d been stood down and a potential security risk. He noticed the other soldiers and Marines and airmen reaching for their weapons again, but then he saw, beside Ten’s bed, light coalescing, a growing and building until it was a blinding flash —

“Thank you, Kind One, for bearing my final burden.”

John squinted and saw the light dimming, fading, and in its place stood a young man, tall and dark-skinned, curly-haired, golden-eyed.

“Aimon!” Brona cried.

He wore loose-fitting trousers and a flowing wrap-around top made of the same fabric as Brona’s gown.

Aimon turned toward her, as if he could see her. “Thank you for saving me, shield-sister. I will see you, truly see you, when you ascend as well.” He bowed to John. “Thank you, Kind One, for bearing her burden.” He turned back to Ten and bowed again three times. “Thank you, Kind One. May the blessing of the Ancients be with you.”

And then he dissipated into a glow and literally began to ascend toward the ceiling before he vanished altogether.

“Holy Hannah,” Free from Fire Team D said, putting a hand on Ten’s shoulder. “I’ve never seen someone ascend before.”

“Well, that clears up the question of whether or not Sheppard and Ten were possessed,” Keller said to Rodney.

Rodney turned to John. “Well, what is it your dead Ancient wants you to do? Can you draw a picture?”

Dr. Moon turned to Ten. “Ten is renowned on Atlantis as an artist, as is Major Lorne.”

“Did Aimon know that when he picked Ten, or did he just get lucky?” Rodney asked, turning back to Ten and Fire Team D.

“He didn’t say,” Ten admitted. “He was pretty excited when I told him I was an artist.”

Brona was staring at the spot where Aimon had vanished into the ceiling.

“John,” Rodney snapped. “What is it that the ghost or imprint or whatever wants you to do?”

“Her name is Brona,” Teyla said gently.

John swallowed hard. “Dr. Moon, can I talk to you? Privately?”

“Of course. Let’s return to my office,” she said, and spun on her heel.

“Privately?” Rodney protested. “How are we supposed to help you?”

“Ten didn’t need help from his teammates. He had the necessary skill all his own,” John said. “I just need to consult with Dr. Moon since my ghost is female.”

“Then take Teyla with you,” Rodney called after him.

Dr. Moon nodded and said, “Yes, Teyla, please do come with us,” before John could protest.

Brona, of course, trotted after them. Did she even have to do that? She was shorter than John, barely came up to his shoulder, and how had she fared in battle against the Wraith? Her armor looked practically medieval, but then the Ancients had impressive technology to make up for lame body armor, and they had those epic personal shields. She’d managed to save Aimon, though. Enough to make his final burden a portrait of her.

“Were you in love with Aimon?” John asked in a low voice, shortening his stride enough that he fell behind Dr. Moon and Teyla just a bit.

Brona shook her head. “No. Aimon was one of my best friends, but I didn’t see him that way. Besides, he preferred other boys.”

Well, that answered that.

“But your final wish was to be in love?”

Brona nodded.

“So what is it you want me to do? Track down the boy you were in love with?”

Brona bit her lip. “I’m not sure.”

“We’ll start there.” John said, “Hold up, Dr. Moon, I don’t think I need that consult after all. I just had a chat with Brona, and I think I have an idea. Thanks for the walk-and-talk.”

He spun on his heel. 

“John?” Teyla asked, peeling away from Dr. Moon and following him.

“Brona’s final burden is finding out the fate of her best friend. We need to go through that graveyard and find out where he is — if he’s there at all,” John said. That seemed better than nothing. They could do like he and Elizabeth had done for that alien couple who hadn’t actually been a couple and instead had tried to kill each other. That might do the trick. No virtual kissing, though. Maybe just the confession they never got to do in real life, and everything would be fine.

“And if he is not there?” Teyla asked.

“I don’t know,” John admitted. “She’s a bit fuzzy on her final burden herself.” He glanced at Brona. “If you make these recordings before you go into battle and then die in battle, how accurate is this recording? How is this your _real_ last wish if it wasn’t made in your last moments?”

“This recording is combined with a recording made in our final moments,” Brona said. “Aimon’s must have been lucid enough that he knew very clearly what his final burden was. Mine must have been...less.”

Given Aimon’s description, she was probably right.

“We’ll do our best,” John said. He tapped his radio. “Lorne, who’s next on the rotation for an offworld mission?”

Lorne said, “AR-6, AR-7, and AR-8.”

“They have gene carriers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Send a recon drone over MK6-315 to map out the entire cemetery and make a grid. We have work to do.”

“Shouldn’t you rest, sir?” Lorne asked.

John looked over at Brona, who was worrying at her bottom lip. “Brona’s been resting for ten thousand years. Resting isn’t even for the dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

“Is she with us right now?” Rodney asked as they stood at the edge of the cemetery. He peered at the empty space beside John a little anxiously.

“Yes, she is,” John said. Something about Brona made Rodney decidedly uneasy. Even though there was a perfectly rational and even highly scientific explanation for her, Rodney was very jumpy. 

“Where is she?” 

“Next to you,” John said, which was the truth, because Brona wasn’t actually stuck to any proximity constraints. She could go wherever she wanted — that John could perceive, at any rate, since she was in John’s brain. But as long as John could see it, she could go there.

Rodney started violently, spun around. “Where?”

“Never mind.” John beckoned subtly. Even though Brona wasn’t _actually_ there, it was better for his sanity if he acted like she was.

It wasn’t better for everyone else’s sanity, because the gesture didn’t go unnoticed by Teyla and Ronon, but Teyla nodded and shifted aside so Brona, incorporeal though she was, could pass by unimpeded.

In the time it had taken the drone to map the full extent of the Ancient cemetery, John had had an enforced rest, and he was feeling refreshed now, and Keller — and Woolsey and Lorne and the rest of John’s team — were reassured that he was recovered from the shock of having Brona implanted in his head and also the stress of everyone suspecting he’d had a psychotic break.

AR-6, which was an all-Korean team plus a Pegasus native, was taking the northwest quadrant. AR-7, which was an American team plus a civilian scientist and a Pegasus native with military experience, was taking the northeast quadrant. AR-8, which was an Australian team, was taking the southwest quadrant. John and his team were taking the southeast quadrant. They were looking for the tomb of the boy Brona had loved. One of them would take on his burden, help him Ascend, and that would help Brona Ascend too.

At least, John hoped so.

“Surely it’s not that simple,” Rodney had said while they were making a search grid over the map of the graveyard generated from the recon drone’s image printout.

“All Ten had to do was draw a picture,” John had said.

“You said that Brona’s final burden was to fall in love,” Teyla had said. “Surely that is more complex than a drawing.”

“Well you know teenagers,” John had said. “Puppy love and all that.”

He’d winced when Brona had glared at him.

Ronon had frowned. “Sounds like she already fell in love and didn’t ascend. How’s this gonna help her?”

“Falling in love and having that love and being in love and loving each other are all different things,” Teyla said. “Perhaps the only way Brona will be allowed to express her love is by doing him this kindness, and that will settle the matter for the Ancients.”

Ronon considered. “Okay.”

Once all three teams were through the gate and assembled, it was Lorne who issued instructions about how the search would be carried out. John had, with Brona’s careful — and increasingly frustrated — assistance written out her first love’s name in Ancient and distributed copies to everyone so they would be able to identify it when they saw it.

It was AR-7 who found it after half an hour of searching. Sergeant Chang got on the radio and said,

“Colonel Sheppard, we have a winner.”

“Do we?” Dr. Winner asked, and John heard snickers in the background.

“What’s your twenty?” John asked, but he was already headed toward AR-7’s search quadrant.

Major Benjamin provided exact coordinates.

John ordered AR-8 to fall back to the gate to keep watch.

Warrant Officer Bang responded with a cheery affirmative.

“They found him?” Brona asked. “They found Daithi?”

“Sounds like,” John said. “You’ll have to check the spelling of the name for sure.”

“This better work,” Rodney said. He eyed John, still clearly spooked by how he was talking to seemingly thin air.

“There are no guarantees,” John said. “This isn’t as concrete as drawing a picture.”

When they arrived at the far end of the cemetery, AR-7 was clustered around a tall cairn beside an even taller tree. John had forgotten how massive the trees were. Carved into one of the rocks in absolutely tiny print — which was how John and his teammates had missed the writing the first go round — was a name that did look an awful lot like the one John had tried to write over and over again.

“What does Brona think, sir?” Captain Yuy asked.

Major Benjamin, the leader of AR-7 and a Pegasus native, tended to hang back and let Captain Yuy do a lot of the talking, which was a little ironic, because Captain Yuy was known for being rather laconic, on a Ronon sort of scale.

Brona came tearing forward so fast that John instinctively wrenched himself sideways even though she was incorporeal and would just go through him.

Rodney jerked himself sideways to avoid John crashing into him. “Don’t _do_ that!”

“Sorry. Reflex,” John said. “It freaks me out when she goes through me.”

Teyla put a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “That would be very disconcerting.”

Brona leaned over and peered at the cairn. She nodded. “That’s it. That’s Daithi.” She straightened up, pressed a hand to her chest. Then she stopped and really looked around. “So many of my friends just...died. We all _died._ How many of them ascended?”

John was guessing none of them, save Aimon. Instead he said, “She says it’s him.”

“Well, which one of us wants to take on the imprint?” Major Benjamin asked. “I don’t have the Gene, so I’m out.”

Of his team, only Yuy and Barton had the gene.

Barton held out a hand. “Rock Paper Scissors?”

Chang said, “Colonel Sheppard’s imprint’s dying wish was to fall in love, right? And someone’s taking on the imprint of her first love? No one’s gonna kill Yuy for romancing the Colonel. Barton, though. Someone might kill you for doing some romancing.”

Barton blinked his big green eyes. Yuy blinked his uncanny blue eyes (should someone Japanese have blue eyes like that? Naoe had blue eyes like that).

“Who said anything about romance?” Rodney demanded.

John cleared his throat. “Daithi was Brona’s first love, yes. But to show her love she wants to help Daithi ascend. So I think as long as one of you helps him ascend, no actual romancing is necessary.”

Yuy made an impatient sound. “Then let me do this.”

“Yeah, because who wants to romance you anyway?” Chang said, and Barton elbowed him sharply.

“Are you willing to accept an imprint and help Brona’s friend Daithi ascend?” John asked.

Yuy nodded. “Yes, Colonel,” he said. “I would be glad to help a fellow soldier in the war against the Wraith.”

Brona came trotting over to him, circled him curiously. “Oooh, he’s cute! Is he going to be Daithi’s Kind One?”

John sucked in a deep breath to keep himself calm and patient. “Yes, he’s going to help Daithi and be his Kind One. And — and I have no opinion on his cuteness. He’s a respected member of the expedition and a fine Airman.”

Yuy blinked. “Cute?” 

The rest of AR-7 looked amused.

Teyla said, “You are very handsome, Captain Yuy.”

Yuy turned and faced a blank patch of air several inches to the left of where Brona was standing and bowed in a very traditional Japanese fashion and said, “Thank you, Brona-san. I am very flattered.”

“He’s not,” Chang said. “He hates being called cute. If you weren’t a teenage girl and weren’t already dead he’d be threatening to kill you.”

Yuy cut him a sharp glare, and Chang fell silent.

John wasn’t sure if he should laugh or be disturbed. “Well, thank you for agreeing to accept the imprint. How about you activate the pedestal and we’ll go from there.”

Yuy nodded, and then he reached toward the pile of stones.

Everyone else stepped back, wary, especially the other Gene carriers.

Brona said, “Please, let it work.”

Sure enough, there was a flash of blue light, and then Yuy spun and drew his pistol, and Brona shouted, “No! Don’t!”

“Yuy! Stand down!” John shouted, and Ronon shouted, and a massive kerfuffle ensued as Yuy attempted to fight an invisible opponent and everyone tried to get out of the way of his pistol, and finally Ronon and Sergeant Chang managed to disarm Yuy and wrestle him to the ground.

“That,” Rodney said, voice shaking. “That’s why you got sent to Dr. Moon.”

“So maybe the guy who’s a ninja in his spare time was not the best choice for this after all,” Lorne said.

Brona hovered right beside John, eyes wide. “Is Daithi hurt? Will Daithi be okay?”

“You know that they can’t actually touch each other,” John said.

“Daithi’s probably really scared, though,” Brona said.

John took a deep breath. “Well, Yuy wasn’t behaving like that because he was overjoyed with the situation.”

It was Barton who knelt beside Yuy and whistled a soft tune, soothing him.

After a minute or so, Yuy’s breathing relaxed, and Ronon and Chang let him up.

“Airman,” John said. “You okay?”

Yuy bowed and apologized formally to everyone. “I’m fine now.” He also bowed and apologized to thin air — to Daithi.

Brona perked up. “What does Daithi need? To ascend.”

Yuy said, eyes gleaming, “Daithi’s final wish was to bring the heads of five Wraith to lay at the feet of his training master.”

“That’s not very romantic,” Major Benjamin drawled.

“As much as I don’t really want you to go throwing yourself into danger,” John began.

“I’m sure we could find a known Wraith-infested planet in the database,” Lorne said.

“I’m guessing we know how Daithi died in battle,” Chang murmured.

Barton elbowed him.

“So in the meantime, I guess Brona and I just...chill. Till Yuy’s done doing his thing,” John said. “Ronon, go with him. You boys have fun. Unless Yuy has to do it solo?”

Yuy turned his admiring gaze on Ronon. “You want to come with, Specialist?”

Ronon said, “I’ll get my sword. Haven’t used my sword in a while.”

Lorne said, “I’ll make sure Hiro gets checked over by medical before he and Ronon set out.”

John nodded. “I think I’ll stay here and just chill. Ronon, how long do you think it’ll take you and Yuy to do the thing?”

“After we find a Wraith planet?” Ronon grinned. “Not long.”

Lorne said, “I’ll send an Anthro team on over to start cataloguing the place. Make sure no one touches anything.”

Ronon and Yuy headed for the gate while Lorne got on the radio.

“Thanks, Major.” John cast about for a place to take a load off, spotted a nice shady space beneath one of the gargantuan trees, and sank down.

Rodney scurried after him. “John, now is not the time to relax.”

“Now is precisely the time to relax,” John said.

Brona scampered after him. “I wish we could go with Daithi.”

“Pretty sure if you’d recorded your imprint after some time in combat with the Wraith, your unfinished business wouldn’t be falling in love and you wouldn’t wish we could go with Daithi,” John said. 

Rodney stood over John, staring at him uncertainly, then finally sat beside him. “I’m not sitting on Brona, am I?”

She was standing beside the tree, watching as the rest of AR-7 spread out and started taking pictures, doing their best to be systematic about taking pictures of each grave marker and not duplicate each other’s work. Anthro would be pleased.

“She’s not sitting,” John said. “Until she’s ascended, I’m still basically stood down, can’t really go on important away missions, so. Taking a load off.”

“What do teenagers know about love anyway?” Rodney muttered.

“I’m sure people wondered what a teenager knew about astrophysics and electrical engineering.” John cast Rodney a sidelong glance.

“I’m a genius.”

“Teenagers have feelings. Teenagers can drive cars.” John studied Brona, who’d drifted further away from the tree and was virtually traipsing after Major Benjamin — she also thought he was handsome — as he worked on recording the grave markers themselves as well as the names carved into them. “Teenagers can go into battle against the Wraith.”

Rodney huffed. “Falling in love isn’t the be-all, end-all of human existence. Or Ancient existence.”

“When you’re facing certain death, knowing that you’re fighting for something besides yourself, that you have someone to come home to, can mean a lot,” John said. “Unless you don’t believe in love at all? Being a scientist and all. Love is just a series of pointless electrical impulses and shifting hormone levels that drive humans toward reproduction and the propagation of the species?”

“My parents certainly didn’t believe in love — not for each other and not for me and Jeannie,” Rodney said with a snort.

“Do you think Jeannie loves you? Or her husband and her daughter?” John asked.

Rodney shrugged. “Probably. Or at least she thinks she does.”

Something cold curled in John’s chest. If Rodney didn’t believe in love to the extent that he assumed everyone around him was incapable of love, that was frightening. Was Rodney incapable of love? Or did he simply refuse to love?

“If love doesn’t exist, will Brona never ascend? Will I be carrying her burden forever?” 

Rodney turned to him sharply. “What? No. Don’t say that. Listen, it seems like whatever sets these recordings is very personal and individualized and, it pains me, deeply psychological. Probably only Brona — or her imprint — can decide that her unfinished business has been finished. It’s like a computer program running a series of conditional statements, a highly specific program. As long as the conditions are met, even if the conditions are fictional to us, the program is complete. It’ll be fine. Once medical clears Yuy, he and Ronon can go on their ridiculous quest, Brona’s first love will ascend, and everything will be fine.” He reached into one of his vest pockets, fished around. “Power bar?”

That Rodney was offering one of his spare power bars in the face of his notorious hypoglycemia meant something.

John accepted it; he kept spare power bars for Rodney just in case. “Thanks.”

Rodney smiled briefly, a lovely quirk of his crooked mouth, and then said, “I still can’t believe you touched the alien rocks.”

“In my defense, there’s not a lot of precedent for rocks being technologically advanced.”

“Touché,” Rodney muttered.

“Next we won’t be allowed to touch the trees or flowers —”

“There is precedent for evil alien plants,” Rodney said. “Also remember the evil alien crystals?”

“Did we even touch those? I think we just _looked_ at those.” John sighed. “Why do we even leave Atlantis?”

“Because,” Rodney said. “Once in a while we meet people like Teyla and Ronon.”

Brona returned to John’s side and sank down beside him. “Your Rodney friend seems like a very sad and lonely person.”

“Rodney is a scientist. Scientists are practical and skeptical. It’s in their job description,” John said.

“This is true,” Rodney said, “but why are you talking about me?”

“Brona wanted to know,” John said.

Rodney cast a wild look around. “She’s here?”

“Sitting beside me now.”

Rodney scooted away from John a bit.

Brona shook her head. “Daithi was a scientist. Scientists are poets and artists and dreamers. They imagine all the ways the universe could be, all the magical things we could use so our lives could be better, and they make them _be._ ”

John eyed Rodney and thought he might dislike the description, but he also thought Brona wasn’t exactly wrong.

“So why is Brona curious about me?” Rodney asked. 

“She just wanted to know,” John said, which wasn’t exactly the truth but not exactly a lie either. He wasn’t a professional interpreter, so he wasn’t duty-bound to convey everything Brona said, and while he wasn’t blessed with Teyla’s natural social graces and savvy, he wasn’t about to tell Rodney a teenage girl’s blunt opinion of him either. 

“Oh. Well, you can tell her I’m the smartest man in two galaxies,” Rodney said. Then he eyed John. “Can’t she just read your mind?”

“She can’t,” John said. 

Brona rolled her eyes. “A woman is probably smarter.”

Colonel Carter might have shared that sentiment. John would say neither of those things. 

Instead he said, “For a scientist, Daithi’s last wish sounded awfully bloodthirsty.”

Brona’s expression dimmed. “Battle changes all of us.”

John looked at Rodney and hoped it would never change him to that extent, but then he remembered the first time he’d laid eyes on Dr. Daniel Jackson, how the man had had short hair like a soldier and carried himself with a physical confidence Rodney had never possessed and had handled a firearm with a competence Rodney would likely never possess. As much as Rodney’s complaining offworld could get old, John didn’t think he ever wanted to see the day when Rodney had the same combat shadows in his eyes as Daniel Jackson, when Rodney could pass for a soldier or an airman or a Marine out of the corner of John’s eye. 

Brona said, “So how long have you and Rodney been in love?”

John spluttered. “What?”

“What what?” Rodney asked.

“Nothing,” John said quickly, and then to Brona, “we’re not.”

“We’re not what?” Rodney asked. 

“I’m just explaining to Brona that you and I are colleagues and professionals and teammates but not otherwise related,” John said, which he thought was a pretty clever answer, given how his heart was racing and his face felt flushed. 

“Do we look like family to her?” Rodney said. 

“She thought she saw a certain familial connection,” John said. 

Rodney said, “Well, we are both very handsome.” He preened a little. 

Some days Rodney was bafflingly arrogant about all the wrong things. Usually he was terribly self-conscious about his looks. Given that Atlantis was staffed with young and fit Marines and also men like Ronon, Rodney’s self-consciousness was understandable. John was on the wrong side of thirty-five and feeling it more and more every day. But Rodney _was_ very handsome, with his piercing blue eyes and strong jaw and his wicked mouth. 

Brona’s eyes went wide. “You _do_ like him, but you haven’t told him. Why?”

Had the Ancients had the equivalent of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Even though it had just been repealed, there were other things to think about, like ruining a long-standing friendship. 

John cleared his throat. “Reasons,” he said. “That I can’t really talk about here.” He cast about for some kind of distraction.

Daithi. Daithi was a good distraction.

“So, even though Daithi’s last wish was to behead a bunch of Wraith and be badass, which is understandable, as I am an airman and I was once a teenage boy, if you did have to romance him, how would you have done it?” John smiled and did his best to look interested. While he didn’t much enjoy small talk, he was good at small talk, had mastered the art long ago when he’d had to accompany his parents to opera galas and a night at the ballet and gallery festivals.

And cotillions.

John knew how to talk to teenage girls.

Rodney spluttered. “Why do you care about wooing a teenage boy?”

John said, patiently, “I care because Brona cares, and I am Brona’s Kind One, and I am bearing her final burden. Also we have some time to kill, and this might score me some brownie points with the boys and girls in Anthro down the road.”

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “Is there someone new and young and attractive in Anthro that I don’t know about?”

“Why, you want first dibs?” John shot back, but something in his chest tightened at the thought of Rodney trying to woo someone else. John had done his best to be a supportive friend and wingman through all of Rodney’s dating exploits — Katie Brown, Jennifer Keller, most recently Dr. Maria Esposito.

“No,” Rodney said, and John felt the tightness in his chest loosen.

“What’s dibs?” Brona asked.

“Never mind about dibs,” John said, offering her a pleasant smile. “So, how would you woo Daithi?”

“Obviously I’d follow the rules in the Book,” Brona said.

John blinked. “What book?”

“The Book of Courtship,” Brona said, looking at John like he was slow. “It’s a guide for courting someone. It has rules about the appropriate gifts for the different stages of courting, and also tips and suggestions for how to be charming and how to win your lover’s heart, and how to flirt, and all the ceremonial rites for a marriage, and how to maintain harmony in a marriage, and when and how to commit adultery, and — and other details.” She blushed.

“So basically it’s the Kama Sutra,” John said.

Rodney made a choking sound. _“What?_ You can’t talk to a teenager about the _Kama Sutra.”_

John looked at him. “Why not? It’s just a book.” Then he rolled his eyes. “First of all, she doesn’t even know what it is. Second of all, the part with _pictures_ is just a fraction of the book. The majority of the book is about courtship and marriage. A _sutra_ by definition is mostly text. Get your mind out of the gutter, Rodney.”

“What’s the Kama Sutra?” Brona asked.

“On Earth, the planet we come from, it’s probably just like your Book of Courtship,” John said. “Though I’m sure our rules of courtship and marriage are very different from yours. So, what would you do for Daithi?”

Brona tilted her head back to look at the sky. “Well...to prove that I would be willing to make a house with him, I would...make him a chair. We always had to sit on the floor during training, because training was always outdoors, and he deserved a comfortable chair. And then to prove that I would be willing to share my body with him, I would swim with him. He always enjoyed swimming, and after a long hot day of training, a nice dip in the river would be pleasant, and then maybe I’d give him a backrub after? That would be nice. The third part is the hardest, though. To prove I have given him my heart, I would…”

She hummed thoughtfully.

She turned to John and smiled. “I would tell him something about myself that I had told no one else, something very important to me. Maybe I would write it down and in a book I had made myself? So that he could also write down the things that mattered to him. If I were more talented I would write my feelings into a song and perform it for him, or perhaps put them into a painting, or otherwise make something that signified my feelings, that he could keep, but I’m not that kind of person.”

John nodded. “That all seems very lovely and sincere.”

“What all seems very lovely and sincere?” Rodney asked.

John glanced at him. “Oh. Right. She’d make Daithi a chair, and go swimming with him, and make him a journal to write in.”

Rodney eyed John with much skepticism. Then he said, “I’d take a more comfortable mattress, because the ones we’ve been issued on Atlantis are like rocks. And honestly, swimming is not my preferred sport. No, I’d much prefer a nice soak in a hot tub, thanks. And then a back rub.”

“You already have one of the baths with the jets,” John pointed out.

Rodney smiled to himself. “I do.” Then he said, “The journal sounds nice, though. I mean, I tend to type my scientific ideas down on my laptop. But a journal with staff paper for song ideas might be nice. Staff paper is annoyingly hard to come by on Atlantis.”

“Staff paper?” John asked.

“I play piano,” Rodney said.

“I knew that,” John said. “I didn’t know you write songs.”

“Mostly in my head, due to lack of staff paper.” Rodney shrugged.

Brona said, “If you wish to marry another, you must make a house with them, share your body with them, and share your heart with them. Your courting gifts must reflect an intention to do all three things.”

John opened his mouth to say he had zero intention of marrying Rodney, because first of all, that wasn’t strictly true, and second of all, even if that wasn’t strictly true, marrying Rodney wasn’t exactly an option for him, and third of all, Rodney was sitting _right there_ next to him.

Instead he smiled and said, “That’s good to know. We don’t exactly have those specific courting rules in our culture. Typically when a man wants to marry a woman, he has to propose to her, expressing his desire to marry her, and if she accepts his proposal, then they’re engaged. As a sign of her accepting his proposal, she wears an engagement ring, signifying her intention to be wed.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “The stupid engagement ring.”

Brona nodded. “That sounds lovely. What does the man wear?”

“Ah — nothing,” John said.

“Nothing what?” Rodney asked, and John really was tired of being in the middle of Brona and Rodney’s not-actual-conversations.

“The man wears nothing to signify he’s engaged to the woman,” John said.

“That’s not strictly true,” Rodney said. “In a lot of western cultures, it’s true, the man doesn’t wear any kind of engagement rings, but in South Korea at least, the man also wears a ring. Granted, those crazy kids also start wearing couple rings when they’ve been dating for three months, so.”

John stared at him. “Why do you know this?”

“Because everyone knows the drawers in my workbench are sacred and when Dr. Lee decided he wanted to date Dr. Kim he bought some couple rings and hid them in my workbench until they reached their one-hundred day anniversary, and I had to listen to a whole lecture on Korean dating practices, complete with a powerpoint presentation. I find the entire thing insane, but a lot of the ladies seemed interested, and a lot of the other men were taking notes, so maybe I also...took some notes.” Rodney shrugged, defensive.

John turned to Brona. “On our planet, there are many cultures with many courtship and marriage rules and traditions. But in the culture _I_ come from, the man doesn’t wear a ring to show that he’s engaged to be married.”

“Then how does anyone know he’s going to be married?” Brona asked.

“They don’t,” John admitted. “Once the man and woman are married, though, both of them wear rings. Sometimes the woman gets a wedding ring to go with her engagement ring, sometimes not. Depends on how much money the man has and what the woman wants.”

Brona eyed Rodney. “You keep saying _man and woman._ But what about you and Rodney? Can you not get married?”

John said nothing.

“Some cultures are like that, because of the Wraith.” Brona shrugged. “Men and women must marry to keep the population up, but they’re free to take lovers however they choose.”

John was saved from trying to say that he’d explain later and then having to explain to Rodney what he’d explain later by an incoming radio transmission.

Yuy had been cleared by medical, and he and Ronon were working with Dr. Naoe, Chuck, and Amelia in Ops to find a suitably Wraith-infested planet to go essentially bounty-hunting. More Anthro teams were being dispatched to John’s location to help catalogue the cairns. Names would be recorded and matched against names in the Ancient database. After all, Brona’s planet had warranted its own entry.

John thanked Chuck for the update, then pushed himself to his feet. “There’s no point in us staying here. Might as well go back to Atlantis.”

“What about Daithi?” Brona asked.

“They’ll know where to find us once their mission is done,” John said. “But we’re not getting anything done here. I’m pretty sure Lorne has some paperwork waiting for me.”

John rose, dusted himself off, then offered Rodney a hand. 

Rodney heaved himself to his feet with some grumbling and groaning.

“Good. I can get some work done in the lab and sit in a real chair,” Rodney said. “Although the stools for the workbenches are the same torture devices we had in our high school science labs, I swear.”

“Maybe one day the chairs will get upgraded,” John said. What would it take, to get Rodney a more comfortable chair?

Rodney said, “Who’s that?”

John glanced over his shoulder. “You mean Teyla?”

Teyla was headed toward them. “I have heard that Ronon and Rocky are on their way to acquire Wraith heads for Daithi’s ascension. Brona must be pleased.”

“Not Teyla,” Rodney said, pointing. _“Her.”_

John followed the direction of Rodney’s finger. Teyla paused to look as well.

And then John realized. Rodney was pointing at Brona, who was glowing ever so faintly.

“You can see her?”

“I’m not blind,” Rodney snapped.

John grabbed Rodney’s shoulder. “That’s _Brona.”_

Teyla’s eyes went wide. “Then Daithi’s success on his mission and ascension will lead to her ascension as well?”

“It better,” Rodney said. He shook John off and marched toward Brona. “Hey Missy! I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but just taking over a man’s brain is rude and unacceptable.”

Brona, who’d been headed in the direction of the gate, paused. “Me? Is he talking to me? Can he _see_ me?”

“Rodney, it’s not her fault,” John began.

And then Rodney came up short. “Where did she go?”

The glow around Brona had faded. “What? I’m right here!” She planted herself in front of Rodney and waved frantically.

“She’s still here,” John said. “You just can’t see her anymore.”

“Whatever Daithi’s doing, it must be working,” Rodney said.

“You mean whatever Yuy and Ronon are doing,” Teyla said.

John picked up the pace. “Let’s get back to Atlantis.”

* * *

After a quick debrief with Woolsey, John, Rodney, and Teyla split up, ostensibly to get back to work and be as efficient and useful with their time as possible till Ronon and Rocky returned, but as soon as John was out of Rodney’s earshot, he turned to Brona.

“Rodney could see you. How?”

“I believe Rodney your scientist friend is correct,” Brona said, trotting to keep up with John as he headed for the military command office. “Daithi’s Kind One and your friend Ronon are succeeding in the mission to fulfil Daithi’s final wish, and as Daithi prepares to Ascend, I too prepare to Ascend, and as a result I become visible to the living before I depart.”

John took a deep breath, feeling relief creeping through his limbs not not quite trusting it. “Good. That’s good. I’m glad. You can go now, and you and Daithi and Aimon and all your friends and family can be together with the rest of the Ancestors.” He managed what he thought was a pretty reassuring smile.

“Well, I can’t go _right_ now. I’m still with you.” Brona smiled up at John. “So, Rodney is going to do science, and Teyla is going to train the Marines. What are we going to do till Daithi and his Kind One and Ronon get back?”

John stepped into his office and saw his tablet sitting in the middle of his desk, along with a massive pile of paperwork.

“That,” he said.

Brona’s eyes lit up. “What is that?”

John could already feel his hand cramp up with his signature times a thousand. “Bureaucracy.” But he sank down in his chair — which was, admittedly, a lot nicer than the glorified barstools in the lab — and set to work.

Less than a minute in, Brona, who was perched on the corner of the desk (and sitting sort of _in_ a stack of John’s old military manuals), said, “This is boring.”

“This is what happens when you’re in command of an entire military base.”

“Well, since it’s just you and me in here, tell me why you haven’t told Rodney you’re in love with him. Is it because he’s already married to someone else? Or that he doesn’t like men? Or that he just doesn’t like you?”

John sighed. Then he glanced at the door and, with a thought, set it to require a chime instead of sliding open automatically when someone approached.

Having the super Gene had its perks.

“Have you ever heard of homophobia?”

Brona tilted her head, tested out the word. “No?”

“Well, let me explain more about Earth’s long and storied culture to you.”

Less than a minute in, Brona said, “That’s stupid.”

“I don’t disagree with you, but that’s the way it is.”

“So if you tell him you love him, you could lose your job.”

“Well, not anymore, but it could get awkward.”

“...I can see why you haven’t told him, though.” It was Brona’s turn to sigh. Then she tilted her head. “You’re pretty impressive, though. You can work and talk at the same time.”

“It is why they pay me the small bucks.”

“Small bucks?”

“Money,” John said.

Brona nodded. “Of course. You are the commander of the entire military base of Atlantis for a reason.” She kicked her legs idly, watching the hem of her skirt flutter. “I’m still bored.”

“I can turn on the radio if you like. You might hate earth music, though. Radio Atlantis has a pretty wide variety, so maybe something will catch your fancy. Everyone who joins the expedition pretty much surrenders their entire music collection to the Archivist and it gets added to the rotation, so anything goes.”

Brona perked up. “I like music.”

John reached out, flipped on the radio receiver on his desk. He could tune it to only receive incoming radio transmissions, or he could tune in to Radio Atlantis, which was run by volunteer deejays among the expedition members.

Eric Nam, one of the civilian gate techs, was the station manager. He had a pleasant, radio-friendly voice, and he was the DJ for the all-request lunch hour.

“This is When The Stars Go Blue, by Tyler Hilton and Bethany Joy Lenz, from Dr. Kusanagi to Dr. Zelenka. _Radek, don’t forget — blue dwarfism is just a stage in a red dwarf’s life and is not a separate kind of star.”_

And then the song began.

Brona tilted her head. “Can stars really turn blue?”

“Theoretically,” John said. “Rodney could explain it better. Just...listen to the song.”

Brona hopped up off the edge of the desk and began to sway along to the song, dancing by herself.

John watched her and her sheer unselfconsciousness and envied her for it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been like that. Even as a teen he’d been quite composed. Yes, he’d played at being casual and insouciant, and even now he slouched around on things, but he was well aware of how appearance mattered. He was an officer and a gentleman, and he was also an outcast and a screwup with a black mark on a record. People had expectations of him.

Brona had been a child soldier.

But in the corner of his office, she was a girl who was dancing to a song about stars turning blue.

“Some stars look like they’re blue. Can we ask Rodney about how stars turn blue?”

John considered the likelihood of Rodney being patient with a frivolous request to expound upon the theoretical state of blue dwarves for John’s invisible friend and winced. “Well, maybe Dr. Zelenka would be a better idea. Sounds like he got a refresher from Dr. Kusanagi recently anyway, based on the song request on the radio just now.”

Brona cocked her head, curious.

The song ended, and Eric said, “And that was the One Tree Hill version of the Ryan Adams song When the Stars Go Blue, dedicated to Dr. Zelenka, from Dr. Kusanagi. Next is a request from Dr. Zelenka, to Dr. Kusanagi. _Miko, thank you for your wisdom. I bow to your superior knowledge of the life cycle of stars._ Atlantis, this is Big D and the Kids Table, Doped up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood.”

John stared at his radio. “What the hell?”

Brona bounced to the cheery brassy music that started to play on the radio.

“Maybe we don’t want to bother Kusanagi and Zelenka right now either,” John said.

On the radio, a man sang, _She’s quite a little ninja, my tough little ninja, me entiendes hombre?_

The song cut off.

“Hey,” Brona protested.

Chuck said, “Colonel, Captain Yuy and Ronon have returned.”

John was out of his seat and unlocking his door with a thought. “Come on,” he said to Brona, even though he was pretty sure she couldn’t stay behind even if both of them wanted her to. “Daithi and his Kind One are back.”

He shut off the radio, tugged on his earpiece, and headed for the door.

Brona immediately hurried after him.

Teyla and Rodney were already in the gate room when he arrived.

Ronon and Yuy stood in front of the gate with half a dozen Wraith heads arrayed at their feet. Both of them were blood-spattered and looked fierce.

Both of them had swords in hand.

The rest of AR-7 was present as well — they must have been called back from the planet as soon as Yuy had returned.

“You have a samurai sword?” Rodney asked.

Yuy said, “I come from a long line of skilled swordsmen, so yes, I have a _katana._ It’s not often I get to use it, but the opportunity arose.” He and Ronon exchanged knowing glances.

“Where’s Daithi? I don’t see him.” Brona craned her neck.

“Are you all right?” Major Benjamin asked Yuy, who nodded.

“None of this blood is mine,” Yuy said.

John looked at Major Benjamin. “Daithi’s final burden was to lay the heads of the Wraith at his master’s feet. Did you find his master’s grave?”

“We think so,” Sergeant Chang said. 

John signaled Chuck. “Dial it up. Let’s go.”

The Quartermaster brought John and his teammates offworld gear while Ronon and Yuy gathered up the Wraith heads in a tarp, and then AR-7 and AR-1 headed back to Brona’s planet.

They hiked back to the memorial grove, though everyone gave Ronon and Yuy and their foul-smelling burden a wide berth.

“Did you and Daithi have the same training master?” John asked.

Teyla and Rodney were hiking with him, John and Teyla ostensibly flanking Rodney, but Rodney was giving John a bit of a wide berth as well, eyeing John askance where he was talking to Brona.

“I don’t know,” Brona said. “I made my recording before I entered training.”

“I was just wondering if you’d recognize his master’s name, confirm if we found the right one,” John said.

AR-8 had stayed behind to maintain security on the planet and left one of their airmen to mark the memorial that they thought belonged to Daithi’s training master.

“Daithi says this is it,” Yuy said. 

He and Ronon laid out the tarp with the hideous Wraith heads in a circle around the pillar of stones.

“You know, this place seemed peaceful and nature-y and artistic when we first got here, and those heads really kill the aesthetic,” Rodney said.

“Aesthetic?” John arched an eyebrow.

Rodney shrugged defensively. “I can appreciate aesthetics now and again.”

Ronon stepped back from the stone monument and bowed his head respectfully, so John and the others did the same.

It was Yuy who took a knee and spoke softly, too low for the others to hear, though Brona drifted closer, her expression solemn and then —

There it was, the coalescing of light, and a bright flare, and Daithi appeared.

He wasn’t what John had expected from Brona’s true love, given that she’d thought Yuy was cute. Daithi was tall, almost as tall as Ronon, and built like a tank, but soft around the middle, with a round face and round cheeks, a small upturned nose, shaggy curls, and big eyes that made him look very young. He looked more like a thug than a scientist, but he had a very boyish face, perhaps made more boyish with how red his curls were and how green his eyes were.

Daithi bowed to Yuy and said, “Thank you, Kind One, for bearing my final burden.”

“Daithi,” Brona whispered. Her voice was choked, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. 

Daithi bowed to Ronon as well and said, “You are a brave and noble warrior. Had we a dozen of you at our side, we might have won our war. Thank you for fighting my final battle at my side. I can Ascend in peace.”

There was another flare of light, gentler this time, like someone had lit a candle, the glow starting at Daithi’s feet and rising up his body, and he began to rise upward.

“Hang on,” Rodney said. “Where’s Brona? Why can’t we see her? Why isn’t she glowing?”

John turned to Brona. She looked down at herself. 

“I don’t feel any different,” she said. “I mean, I feel glad that Daithi has ascended. But I still feel like me. I don’t feel enlightened or lightened of my burden or anything.”

“It must not have worked,” John said.

Teyla said, “Perhaps Brona’s love for Daithi remains even though he has ascended.”

Rodney stared at John. “So you’re stuck with a teenage girl and her unrequited love forever?”

John stared at Brona. “Am I?”

“No?” she said.

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“I don’t know,” she protested, swiping a hand over her face. “I still love Daithi, and I’m glad he’s ascended, but — but I’m still _here.”_

“I can see that,” John said.

Rodney grabbed John’s arm. “What is she saying?”

“She’s saying she still loves Daithi and she isn’t sure if I’m stuck with her unrequited love or not.”

Brona scrubbed at her face some more. “But — but _you’re_ my Kind One. If your love becomes requited, I can ascend. You can make Rodney love you back, right?”

John immediately shook Rodney’s hand off.

“Look!” Brona held out her hand, which was glowing. “I think I’m on the right track! If Rodney loves you back, I can ascend!”

John face-palmed. There were a thousand things wrong with this scenario, and he couldn’t say any of them aloud, not with Rodney standing right next to him.

Teyla put a hand on his shoulder. “John, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re obviously _not_ fine,” Rodney snapped. “What is Brona saying? There has to be a way to interface with the imprint so the rest of us can see her. You shouldn’t be stuck dealing with this alone.”

Brona held out her other hand, which also pulsed with a faint glow. “When he’s concerned for you too, when he’s affectionate with you, it’s working. It’s important. You’re already friends. It wouldn’t be too much of a leap for him to like you back.”

John didn’t want to have to recite Rodney’s long and storied history of skirt-chasing to Brona, because thinking about it was unpleasant. Not that Rodney didn’t have impressive taste in women. He liked them intelligent and accomplished and pretty.

“Well, Yuy and Ronon have proven themselves formidable in battle against the Wraith with just swords, but this was a bust,” John said. “Let’s head back to Atlantis and regroup and let Anthro handle things here.”

Major Benjamin nodded and signaled to the rest of his team to form up. AR-8 would stay on the planet to keep an eye on the Anthro team.

“John,” Rodney said, hovering beside him as they stood off to the side of the gate room to return their tac gear to the Quartermaster, “what are you going to do about Brona?”

“I guess I’ll be talking it over with Dr. Moon after all,” he said.

Rodney’s mouth curved down into that crooked frown of his — how many times had John wanted to kiss his pretty crooked mouth? — and John said, “I’ll figure it out. We all have work to do. But we’re stood down till this is sorted out. Enjoy the down time.”

“Let us know if we can help,” Teyla said.

John nodded. “Enjoy the time with Torren.” He headed for Dr. Moon’s office. On the way, he radioed Lorne. “Major, you’re back on deck.”

“The mission with Yuy was a bust. I’m sorry, sir,” Lorne said.

“You mean you’re sorry about all the paperwork you can sign yourself,” John drawled.

“Sorry not sorry,” Lorne said. “Isn’t that what the kids say these days?”

“Make sure we have blueberry brownies on the next shipment from Earth,” John said. Those were Rodney’s favorite.

“Of course, sir,” Lorne said. There was a knowing note in his voice that John didn’t quite like, a hint of amusement, but Lorne was always so polite and competent, and he’d make it happen, so John didn’t call him on it.

“Over and out,” John said, and switched frequencies. “Sheppard for Dr. Moon, do you copy?”

“I read you, Colonel. Is everything all right?”

“Do you have a moment? I’ll be needing a consult about Brona after all.”

“I don’t have a patient scheduled at the moment, if you’d like to come by my office,” Dr. Moon said.

John paused at her door and activated the door chime with a nudge of his mind. 

* * *

Dr. Moon handled having an invisible third participant in the conversation with aplomb. “So Brona is convinced that if Dr. McKay falls in love with you, she’ll ascend.”

John nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face.

Dr. Moon hummed thoughtfully. “I’m no computer programmer, but given that this system is essentially a computer program, that seems a bit too specific. Perhaps we need Dr. Naoe’s assistance to look at the coding in the device and see if that’s even possible? Because if that really were the case, if such specific conditional events could be programmed, some people might accidentally doom themselves so they could never ascend.”

Brona clapped a hand to her mouth. “What? No. Dr. McKay obviously loves John back.”

John sighed. “Brona says Rodney obviously loves me back, but she’s never seen him panting after other women. Look, Brona, you recorded your imprint thingie before you went into battle. Rodney and I are teammates and comrades-in-arms. When you serve together, you come to care about each other in a way that is beyond friends or even siblings or even lovers. Until you’ve served, you can’t really understand it. A lot of people misread it as lovers and think it’s homoerotic or whatever but it’s just — something else. Two guys who otherwise hate each other can be willing to die for each other. Seems romantic, but it’s really not. It just — is. But Rodney and I are also friends.”

Brona shook her head. “Trust me, I know it when I see it. He _does_ love you back.”

“When I taught you about homophobia, I left out the talk on gaydar. Trust me, there’s no such thing as gaydar,” John said.

Dr. Moon raised her eyebrows. “You taught her about homophobia?”

“She wanted to know why I hadn’t just told Rodney I like him,” John said. He pinned Brona with a sharp look. “And there are _many_ reasons, the least of which are, I don’t know, me losing my best friend.”

Dr. Moon said, “Brona mentioned this Book of Courtship. If she were alive, she’d have given Daithi three gifts according to this book, yes? Would you giving Rodney three gifts that conform to the rules of this book suffice? Even if he doesn’t fall in love with you, you’d have declared your intentions quite clearly according to Brona’s customs, just as she would have done with Daithi.” Dr. Moon turned and addressed the stuffed bear which they’d placed on the couch right beside where Brona was sitting so Dr. Moon could include Brona in the conversation as much as possible. “What do you think?”

Brona considered. “According to the Book, you must promise to share your home, body, and heart with him,” she said to John.

Her hands glowed.

She cheered.

“That must be it!”

John groaned.

“Well?” Dr. Moon asked.

“I think that’s it,” John said. “I guess I’m giving Rodney three presents.” He turned to Dr. Moon. “As long as _I_ know what the gifts are, we’re good, right? Rodney doesn’t have to know what the gifts are for. I can just...give them to him, right?”

Dr. Moon gestured to the stuffed bear. “If Brona says that will suffice, then that should be enough.”

Brona nodded. “As long as the gifts are from your heart, it should be enough.”

John winced and cleared his throat.

Brona gestured. “Tell Dr. Moon.”

“Brona says as long as the gifts are —” The words caught in his throat. He coughed.

Brona reached out and mimed patting him on the back even though she knew she couldn’t touch him. So many living habits were still ingrained into her or programmed into her or something. It was disconcerting. 

“Brona says as long as the gifts are from my heart it should be enough.”

Sure enough, Brona’s hands glowed a little.

Brona cheered.

John was willing to fly a jumper into battle against the Wraith in a suicide mission, but the thought of talking about his feelings any further made him want to curl up in a little ball and hide.

“Any clue of what those gifts should be?” Dr. Moon asked.

Brona tipped her head back and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, he said he wanted a new mattress, and to soak in his fancy bath so his back stopped hurting, and also a book full of...staff paper? So he could write songs.” She turned to John. “The best gifts are ones you make yourself. The Book says so.”

John narrowed his eyes at her. “Can I get a copy of this Book? Because I feel like you might just be trying to play Cupid.”

Brona blinked at him. “What’s Cupid? Is it a fun game?”

John didn’t buy her wide-eyed innocence for one second. He said to Dr. Moon, “Brona says handmade gifts are the most appropriate, but somehow I think handmade gifts will come across a bit obvious, don’t you think?”

“Well, gifts that you effectuate might be similar enough, given your position as Commander of Atlantis,” Dr. Moon offered.

John considered. “True. Thank you.”

“No, they really should be handmade,” Brona said. “You can probably find a copy of the Book in your big glowy database, right?”

John sighed. “Brona’s insisting they be handmade. Let’s see if we can find a copy of the Book in the Ancient database.” 

Dr. Moon nodded. “I’ll call a linguist. Let’s head to the database room.”

John pushed himself to his feet, mind already spinning. 

Gifts for Rodney. What could he do, and what could he possibly make, knowing his own limited skills and limited time and opportunities and supplies on Atlantis?

* * *

Dr. Bruno and Dr. Peace and Dr. Naoe met them in the Ancient Database room.

“How many doctors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” John joked.

“One, but it’ll probably take three or four tries to get it right because she’ll probably give it to the technician to do,” Dr. Bruno said promptly, and Dr. Peace gave her a high five.

John said, “I was just kidding.”

Dr. Peace offered him finger guns. “Eyyyy, we know, but even PhDs have a sense of humor. So, what is it you’re looking for?”

“The Book of Courtship that existed on Brona’s planet Gaudeam,” John said.

“That’s a pretty name for a planet,” Dr. Bruno said. 

Dr. Naoe pulled up the search interface, which was a keyboard that hooked into one of the Ancient holo displays, and Dr. Peace and Dr. Bruno set to typing. Dr. Bruno was the linguist and Dr. Peace was the anthropologist.

“Why is it a pretty name?” John asked.

“It comes from the word meaning rejoice,” Dr. Bruno said, smiling absently to herself.

John looked at Brona. “Is that what it means?”

She nodded.

“Okay, I’m not finding anything from this planet specifically, but I am seeing in the central library database on a bigger planet a Book of Courtship in general,” Dr. Bruno said. “What am I looking for?”

“The rules on giving gifts to a lover,” John said. “Specifically whether or not the gifts have to be handmade.”

Dr. Bruno nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m sure the gifts don’t _have_ to be handmade, but there’s probably a hierarchy of gift-giving,” Dr. Peace said. “I’m guessing gifts for dating versus courting have a hierarchy, and in a culture that delineated between courting with an eye toward marriage versus dating with an eye toward romance or just sex might value handmade gifts for courting but maybe not in dating. Handmade gifts might show off marriageable skills. Or purchased gifts might show off wealth by a potential spouse. Either way.”

“Handmade gifts show sincerity, that you took the time to spend your effort specifically on your loved one,” Brona insisted.

John said, “Why don’t you go help Dr. Peace and Dr. Bruno read the book?” 

Brona perked up. “Yeah!” And she bounded over to the display, where Dr. Peace and Dr. Bruno were scanning the text and talking to each other.

Dr. Moon stood beside John.

“You’re very stressed out by this whole thing.”

“Because giving romantic gifts to Rodney was something I never intended to do.”

“You’ve never struck me as someone overly concerned about losing something when it comes to doing the right thing, like saving someone who’s in danger,” Dr. Moon said.

“This isn’t about saving a teammate who’s in danger,” John said.

“It’s about saving yourself,” Dr. Moon said. “You can’t keep Brona around forever. It’s not sustainable, and it’s not fair to you — or her. What’s wrong with saving yourself, John Sheppard?”

John eyed her. “I _do_ have self-preservation instincts, thank you.”

“I understand your hesitation at ruining your friendship with Rodney.”

“I’m not going to ruin my friendship with Rodney. I’m going to give him some lame homemade presents and Brona will ascend and that’s that,” John said.

“But they won’t just be some lame homemade presents, will they?” Dr. Moon asked in a low voice. “You’re John Sheppard.”

There was a reason John hated head shrinkers. He twisted away from Dr. Moon and moved to stand beside Dr. Bruno and Dr. Peace.

“Sorry,” he said. “I sent Brona to come help you and then remembered that neither of you can interact with her directly. Brona, are they looking at the right place in the Book?”

John couldn’t decide if people on Atlantis were kind or just numb to weirdness, that they no longer looked at him oddly when he talked to Brona, who none of them could see or hear.

Dr. Peace and Dr. Bruno both looked in the same direction John had and said, 

“Yeah, Brona, are we close?”

Brona looked delighted. “They’re so nice! But we’re in the totally wrong section of the book. This is about the division of household chores after marriage.”

John relayed her message, and together, the three of them poked through the book till they found it.

The section on gifts.

Brona hadn’t been lying. In making courtship gifts to declare one’s love — as opposed to wooing someone purely for seduction — handmade gifts were preferable, even if one did have wealth sufficient to buy gifts to demonstrate the financial ability to support a spouse.

“So you do have to hand make your gifts,” Dr. Moon said. “What will you make?”

“That’s less of a cultural problem and more a logistics problem,” John said. He sighed. “Dr. Bruno, Dr. Peace, Dr. Naoe, thank you for your assistance.”

Dr. Naoe shrugged. “I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“Any time, Colonel,” Dr. Peace said. “I was wondering if we could interview Brona? Before she ascends.”

“Sure,” John said. “But I have something to sort out first.”

Dr. Peace nodded. “Cassandra, stay with me. I want to keep reading this.”

Dr. Bruno nodded.

“Thanks, Dr. Moon,” John said. “Brona, c’mon.” He headed for the door.

She trotted after him. “Where are we going?”

“To talk to the logistics master of Atlantis.”

* * *

“Sir?” Lorne asked. He was sitting at his own desk, because he’d never presume to sit at John’s desk even when he assumed temporary command of the base.

“You are the logistics overlord of Atlantis.”

“I wouldn’t use the term _overlord,_ sir.” Lorne continued filling out paperwork.

“Can you throw in an order for staff paper, massage oil, a new prescription mattress for Rodney, and...enough timber to build a new bed frame for him?” John said.

Lorne paused in filling out his paperwork. “Sir?”

“Also, do you know who on Atlantis knows how to bind a book, and build a bed frame, and give massages?”

“Miko can do traditional Japanese book-binding. She makes cute journals. Dr. Ambrose gives nice Swedish massages. As for who can build a bed frame…” Lorne considered. “Captain Saxton, from AR-5. He used to work construction. He’s handy. He can build just about anything. Dare I ask why?”

“It’s related to helping Brona ascend. When does the _Daedalus_ get here?”

“In eighteen days, sir. I’m firing off the final order today in the databurst,” Lorne said. “I can get all these items in last-minute.”

John had eighteen days to learn how to bind a book, build a bed frame, and give a massage. After all, he didn’t want to waste his supplies once they got here. “Thank you, Major. Listen, if anyone asks —”

“Mission supplies, of course, sir.”

“I knew you’d understand.” 

Brona clapped her hands. “You’re hand-making your gifts! But wait, didn’t Rodney say he wanted a new chair?”

“A bed will be better than a chair, trust me. He’s always complaining about his bed,” John said. 

Brona made a nudging motion but didn’t quite touch him. “You mean a bed will be better for both of you.”

John spluttered. “You — you’re a minor! I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Didn’t hear what?” Lorne asked.

“Nothing,” John said quickly, but he knew he was blushing, because Lorne looked amused as well as puzzled. He headed for the door. “Thanks again, Major.”

Brona followed him. “What? If you and Rodney fall in love, then him having a bigger, more comfortable bed will be a benefit to both of you, right?”

“That’s not why I picked a bed as a gift,” John said. “Look, even though I’m not acting as the commander of Atlantis, there’s still a lot of work I have to do, and it’s hard for me to work if everyone thinks I’m crazy, so could you maybe be a bit quieter? While I’m working?”

“You’re not working right now,” Brona said.

John noticed several scientists in blue-patched uniforms give him a wide berth as he headed down the hallway.

“I’m on duty any time I’m in my uniform,” John said.

Brona pouted. “So when you’re in your uniform, I can’t talk to you? You’re the only person who can hear me.”

John glanced at her. He was the only one who’d endured having an imprint following him around for more than a few hours. “Okay, fine, as long as I’m not having a conversation with someone else about work, you can talk to me. And as long as I’m not talking to Rodney, because you freak him out.”

Brona pouted again.

John refused to be moved by her pouty expression.

Which was perfect timing, because Rodney appeared. “So, what did Dr. Moon say?”

“Do you have no respect for doctor-patient confidentiality?”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Like you never stood beside me in the infirmary during a post-mission check-up.”

“Dr. Moon and I have worked out a plan,” John said. “But Brona’s ascension condition is pretty specific, so it could take a while.”

“What kind of plan?” Rodney said. He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have to woo another Ancient?”

“No,” John said. “I’m just doing some stuff for Brona. Hopefully it’ll all work out. We’ve got a time-table and everything else sorted out.”

But if it didn’t work, he really couldn’t keep doing this forever.

Maybe he should ask Dr. Naoe, who was the best hacker on Atlantis, to see about getting Brona out of his brain.

In order to keep Rodney from getting too suspicious, John would have to act as normal as possible, though.

“I am stood down from duty till everything is sorted, so no more gate missions, and I’m not acting as commander,” John said. “So...I have more free time. Wanna play some chess? We haven’t played chess in a while.”

Rodney eyed him. Then he grinned. “Sure. Maybe I can finally beat you while you’re distracted with Miss Teen Beat babbling in your ear.”

“In your dreams,” John said. “Catch you after dinner.”

Rodney nodded. “If we’re stood down, I can get started on that atomic force microscopy project with Radek.” He spun on his heel, looked a bit confused for a moment, then headed for the nearest transporter.

He was so brilliant and so absent-minded all at the same time, and John really shouldn’t have found it cute. Nothing about Rodney McKay was _cute._

“I was good, wasn’t I?” Brona said.

John started. He’d forgotten she was there. “Yes,” he said. “You were very good. Thank you.”

She giggled and leaned in, peered at John’s face. “You like him _so much._ How can he not know?”

“Did Daithi know you liked him? When you were both alive?”

“No, but he was always busy studying the stars,” Brona said, looking a little dejected.

“And there you go,” John said. If he and Rodney played chess in Rodney’s room, he could do recon on Rodney’s room, figure out where a bigger bed could go, figure out how big a bed he could get in there.

He tapped his radio. “Lorne, how big a mattress did you even order for Rodney?”

“A double,” Lorne said immediately. “That’s about as big as anyone can get in their quarters and still have room to walk. Why?”

“Just checking,” John said. “Thanks. Over and out.” He switched frequencies and tapped his radio again. “Control, I need a twenty on Captain Saxton.”

“Roger that, Colonel,” Amelia said. “Captain Saxton and AR-5 are doing hand-to-hand training in the gym with Ronon.”

“Thank you. Over and out.” John headed for a transporter. “We’re going to the gym.”

“Why the gym?” Brona asked.

“To see a Marine about a bed.”

* * *

Whenever AR-1 had downtime, Teyla spent her time with Torren, who lived on the Athosian mainland with his cousins. Sometimes Ronon would visit the colony of Satedan survivors, but he had secondary duties as a combat trainer, so more often than not he was down in the gym either working on his personal fitness or running training for the Marines or basic combat training for anyone who was on a gate team.

John paused in the doorway and watched three ambitious young Marines rush Ronon, and watched all of them get thrown to the mats.

“Wow,” Brona said. “I wonder if my training was like this.”

“I don’t know,” John admitted. Given that the entire population of her planet had been wiped out in a single battle, and they’d been sending teenagers into battle, he was guessing their military prowess hadn’t been all that impressive, that her training had been short and focused on the basics, just enough to get her by — and to give her a sense of false confidence, so she’d be willing to go into battle at all.

But then Daithi had carried a love for his commanding officer long after death, so it hadn’t been all bad, had it?

But John well knew that the heat of battle could forge unlikely bonds and unbreakable loyalty even where there was otherwise no affection or friendship or common interests between people.

It took a moment, but John spotted Captain Saxton, the leader of AR-5, standing on the edges of the mat, watching his teammates get tossed like sacks of potatoes.

John caught his eye, lifted his chin.

Saxton nodded and stepped off the mat, hurried over. “Sir?”

“Marine,” John said. “I hear you’re handy.”

Saxton’s expression turned shifty. “Depends, sir.”

“I hear you used to work construction.”

Saxton relaxed a fraction. “Yes, sir.”

“Can you build furniture?”

“It ain’t pretty but it’s sturdy enough to fuck on, sir,” Saxton said, and a couple of his teammates laughed.

“Well, that’s good, because I need your help building a bed frame,” John said.

Saxton nodded wisely. “I see word has gotten around — build a bed frame, put two mattresses together, have a bigger bed. I don’t know how the Ancients survived on their tiny beds. They must have been my size.” Saxton was shorter than Rodney but broad across the shoulders, strong.

“I want to do a practice run of my own before I build something nicer,” John said.

Saxton said, “How nice is nice? I can do a box frame really easily. If you want some scroll work and stuff, I have tools for that, but that takes a lot more time.”

“I have eighteen days to practice,” John said.

Saxton blinked. “Eighteen days? Oh. _Daedalus_ run. Sure thing, sir. Let me talk to my guys and get some lumber, and I’ll send you coordinates for the workshop, and we’ll go from there. Double, right?”

John nodded. “Thanks, Captain.”

Saxton inclined his head respectfully, then turned and trotted back to the mats.

“That was easy,” Brona said. 

“The actual thing won’t be, I’m sure.” John headed for the doors, tapping his radio as he went. “Control, please get me a twenty on Dr. Ambrose.”

* * *

Dr. Ambrose was more than willing to teach John the basics of giving someone a massage, and she was glad he’d ordered more massage oils, because she was running low. Dr. Kusanagi broke from her ongoing feud with Zelenka long enough to agree to teach him how to bind a book. John figured, for practice, he’d make a sketchbook for Ronon, who he knew liked to draw.

“That was easy,” Brona said, following John to the mess hall. “I’ll be ascended in no time.”

“Eighteen days is longer than you think, especially when you’re waiting for something to arrive,” John said.

He had dinner with his teammates like normal, kept conversation casual — he had to keep Rodney thinking things were normal, after all — and then after dinner he and Rodney went back to Rodney’s quarters for chess.

Once they’d expanded the habitable areas of Atlantis and people had been able to select new quarters, Rodney had opted for a room that had an ensuite with a really nice bath with the hot water jets, but his actual room wasn’t very big, nor did it have a lot of furniture, so all John and Rodney could do was sit on Rodney’s narrow little bed with the chessboard between them.

John’s own room wasn’t much bigger, and he didn’t have much in the way of furniture for guests either, but as a combat-trained pilot he had excellent spatial reasoning, and he could see where a double bed would easily fit, how Rodney’s furniture might be rearranged to accommodate it.

“His room doesn’t look much like yours,” Brona said.

“Not now,” John said absently, watching Rodney start his opening game.

“Not now what?” Rodney asked.

“Brona’s supposed to stay quiet while I’m with you,” John said. “I know she freaks you out.”

Brona perched on the edge of Rodney’s little coffee table and pouted.

Rodney cast a wild look about him. “Where is she?”

“Sitting on your coffee table, as it were.”

“What does she want?”

“Nothing in particular. She just can’t go anywhere without me,” John said. He considered. “Maybe turn on the radio. She likes music.”

“She’ll have to make do with the classical station, because Miko and Radek’s musical feud has reached ridiculous heights.” Rodney shuddered — and brought one of his bishops out to play. But he did reach out and turn his radio on.

The radio system in Atlantis was nice, and John did applaud whoever had thought of it, integrating the communication system with a music system, so people could listen or not as they chose.

Soft classical music began to play.

“Rimsky-Korsakov,” John murmured. “Scheherazade.”

Rodney raised his eyebrows. “You know your classical music.”

“Got dragged to the symphony a lot as a kid,” John said. “And the ballet. And the opera. My mom was a fan of the arts, and the Sheppards were _patrons.”_ He nudged his pawn forward.

It was a cheap tactic, distracting Rodney like that, but a chess game was a game on many levels, and John would be the first to admit he was playing more than a chess game.

Rodney said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to accompany you to your father’s funeral a couple of years ago.”

John paused. Rodney played chess games on many levels — he was such a high-level thinker that he was often playing chess while everyone else around him was playing marbles, let alone checkers — but this wasn’t the kind of thing he’d play games about. “It was a couple of years ago. You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yeah, but I still feel bad.”

“The planet with the kids. You had to help them. It was a big deal.”

Rodney said, “You still remember why I couldn’t go. It was obviously a big deal to you too.”

John sighed. “I was never all that close with my dad. You forget I came to Atlantis on the first wave.”

Rodney just looked at him.

John said, “Your move.”

Rodney looked down at the board. “Right.” He brought his other bishop into play. “You never talk about your mother.”

“You never talked about your sister till she was almost on our doorstep,” John pointed out.

“Will your mother ever be almost on our doorstep?” Rodney asked.

“No. She died when I was seventeen.”

“Oh.”

John said, “Don’t apologize. She had cancer. I knew the end was coming before it came. It was a long time ago.”

“She was a patron of the arts?”

John nodded. “Yeah. I was never really into classical music, but she loved music a lot, so my compromise was the guitar.”

Rodney said, “I love classical music. I like the challenge.”

“So you play Rachmaninoff,” John joked.

“As well as any twelve-year-old could have,” Rodney said.

John raised his eyebrows. _“Twelve?”_

Rodney said, “Your move.”

John said, “But you became a scientist instead of a concert pianist.”

“Science is also a challenge,” Rodney said, but there was a certain tense set to his shoulders, and for all that John had a tendency toward being emotionally repressed and _never saw it coming_ when women flirted with him, he knew Rodney, so he didn’t press further with that line of inquiry.

“I bet girls loved that you played the guitar,” Rodney said.

John said, “I went to an all-boys private boarding school, so I wouldn’t know.”

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “How rich were your parents?”

John said, “I did say I started playing golf when I was five.”

“Is that why you’re so good at math?” Rodney asked.

John said, “You know full well that IQ is genetic. I found out what my IQ was because my parents were able to invest in my education.”

They moved into the middle game, trading a flurry of pieces.

The endgame followed swift and fierce, John chasing Rodney’s king and pawn around the board with a pawn, a bishop, and his own king.

“I always thought your disdain for authority and the Man came from the Man always beating you down,” Rodney said. “But I wondered why someone who has authority issues joined the Armed Forces. But maybe this makes a bit more sense. You grew up rich, so you respect power, but only certain kinds — and mostly your own.”

“Ah, no,” John said. “I refused to obey my dad, and I got cut off, but Uncle Sam pays for school if you hitch up.”

“That’s a lot more banal than I anticipated,” Rodney said. “What did your dad want you to do?”

“Go to Harvard, take over the family business,” John said.

“And what did you do instead?”

“Went to Stanford, joined the Air Force,” John said.

Rodney raised his eyebrows. “Stanford?”

John smiled and slid his pawn across the board and said, “Check.”

Rodney stared down at the board. He moved his pawn.

John moved his bishop and said, “Checkmate in six moves.”

Rodney eyed the board, sighed, and tipped over his king. “Why are you so good at this game?” 

“You forget,” John said, “I’m a trained military officer. Tactics and strategy are part of our education.”

“Don’t think this is the last you’ve seen of me,” Rodney said, reaching for the box he kept the chessboard in. “You owe me a rematch.”

John smiled. Regular chess games where he totally beat down Rodney would assure Rodney that he was functioning well and distract him from the problem of Brona — and what John might be doing to help her ascend.

“Of course,” John said. “Tomorrow night, if you like.’

Rodney nodded. “You’re on. Unless Zelenka blows up the lab.”

John smiled and stood. “All right. See you.”

And he strode out of Rodney’s quarters.

As soon as Rodney’s doors shut behind him, Brona burst out with, “That was _soooo_ boring. I did kinda like the music, at least. It was pretty. But you were talking! That was good, right? Although if you’re friends, shouldn’t you know stuff about each other? I’m sorry about your mother. That must have been very sad. Although what happened to my parents? And Daithi’s parents? And all of our parents? Did my parents ascend? Can we go back to the memorial garden and look for my parents?”

“Whoa,” John said, turning to her. “Slow down. I’d say take a breath, but you don’t need to breathe. Look, Rodney and I are friends and have been friends for a long time, but there’s some stuff we don’t talk about, all right?”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re men,” John said. “And also some stuff just...hasn’t come up in conversation.”

He headed for his own quarters.

“That’s dumb,” Brona said. “Being men shouldn’t prevent you from talking about anything.”

“Every culture has things that are taboo to talk about,” John said. “Your culture probably has stuff that’s taboo. You may not realize it, or not think about it, but it’s there.”

Brona frowned. 

“Not to mention,” John said, “there’s probably stuff you wouldn’t have said to Daithi, right? If you wanted him to like you, and to not scare him off.”

Brona’s eyes lit up. “Are you trying to not scare Rodney off?”

John sighed. “That’s not what I was saying. Look — thank you for being quiet. I appreciate it. Chess is actually a fun and interesting game. And Rodney and I are going to be playing a lot of it. I’ll try to figure out some way for you to entertain yourself while we’re playing, all right? But I need to get some sleep. We have a lot of work to do.”

Back in his quarters, Brona entertained herself with his radio while he got ready for bed, and then it was time to sleep.

John didn’t know if Brona slept or not, but he didn’t think too hard about it.

Eighteen days.

He could do this.

* * *

Even though John was stood down from command and gate team missions, he still had plenty of work to do, so he woke at his regular time the next morning and rolled out of bed, went for his morning run. Then he headed to the gym for his workout, showered, and headed to the mess hall for breakfast.

He rarely had breakfast with his teammates on non-mission days. Ronon had his own workout schedule, and more often than not he ate with the people he was training that day, because training began first thing in the morning, and he oversaw what they ate. Teyla was still on the mainland, and chances were Rodney was already in the lab with barely any kind of meal, working on his project with Radek.

John headed to the lab.

The lab was mild chaos.

Miko and Radek were having some kind of showdown. Half of the scientists were on Miko’s side of the lab while she stood on her workbench and loomed over Radek, and half of the scientists were clustered around Radek while he shielded himself with what looked like a mess hall tray.

The radio was cranked up loud, emitting a bunch of men who were chanting _I’m the biggest hit on this stage._

John stared at the chaos, then craned his neck in search of Rodney, but Rodney was nowhere to be found. Surely Rodney wouldn’t condone this kind of behavior in the workplace.

Miko was, by all appearances, dancing along to the song on the radio, and a couple of the scientists up on the workbench with her were acting as her backup dancers.

Finally Radek shouted, “Okay, _okay,_ you were right and I was wrong and can we _please_ turn off your _awful music_ and I will concede that I made a mistake in my calculations and we can proceed with our experiments like rational human beings.”

Miko straightened up and flicked her wrist, and the music shut off. “For the record, my music isn’t awful, my boy Nakamoto Yuta is _beautiful,_ and also it’s okay to use a calculator. It’s okay to not be Rodney McKay, and also he makes mistakes on his math sometimes.”

“I do not,” Rodney said, sweeping into the lab, a power bar in one hand, his laptop balanced precariously on the other. He paused when he saw John. “Why are you here?”

“I came to borrow a couple of your scientists, actually,” John said. 

Rodney blinked. “Oh? What for?”

“Miko,” John said, “you seem busy. Is Ambrose available instead?”

But Miko hopped down off the workbench with surprising agility and smiled. “Colonel! Are you here for the thing we talked about the other day? I have some time. After all, Radek needs to correct his calculations, and that could take a while.”

“Ambrose isn’t here right now anyway,” Radek said, setting down his cafeteria tray.

Rodney frowned. “What did you need Miko for that you can’t use me for instead?”

“I’m a natural Gene carrier,” Miko lied smoothly, and latched onto John’s arm. “This way. I have everything prepared already.”

John let her drag him out of the lab and thought of the song Radek had dedicated to her on the radio and thought maybe he hadn’t been so wrong.

Brona trotted after him. “I liked the song. It was fun. It reminded me of a war chant.”

John relayed her message for want of anything better to say.

Miko beamed. “Thank you.”

“How did you and Radek end up dedicating songs to each other on the radio like that anyway?”

“There’s no rule that song dedications have to be romantic,” Miko said.

“True,” John said.

“Where are we going?” Brona asked.

John echoed her question.

“There are some rec rooms set aside as workshops for various activities,” Miko said.  
“Major Lorne lets us keep them set up with our supplies. Saves us the constant hassle of setting up and taking down, and other people can access some of the communal supplies.” She smiled and glanced around. “Where is Brona?”

“Walking to my left,” John said.

Miko peered around John and waved a little too low, like Brona was a child, but Brona beamed and waved back anyway.

“I’m sure Ronon will like this gift very much,” Miko said. “And it is very kind of you to make this for him. The technique is actually quite simple, and once you learn it, you’ll be able to do it on your own pretty well.”

John nodded and rolled up his sleeves. “Lay it on me, sensei.”

Miko beamed. “Operation Brona Ascend is a go.”

Miko hadn’t been lying. The actual process of binding a book wasn’t complicated, conceptually. As long as John was careful and precise about stacking the paper and measuring the paper and cutting the paper and gluing the paper, all would go well. Having the right tools made everything so much easier.

“This is a bone folder. It’s your best friend. Otherwise you use your thumbnail, and your wrist hurts from folding all the sections of paper and putting your own strength into it. It’s a lever of sorts and multiplies the force and does the work for you,” Miko said, handing John what looked like a white bookmark once he had his pages counted out and folded and stacked.

He nodded. Of course a physicist would enjoy levers and force multipliers. “Why is it called a bone folder?”

“Because it’s made of bone,” Brona piped up from beside him.

She was delighted that the process was called Operation Brona Ascend, and she flitted about him and Miko the entire time, asking questions. Half the time, Miko directed instructions at Brona and not John. It was weird at first, but it wasn’t like John couldn’t hear what Miko was saying, so he nodded and rolled with the punches.

It said something about how important Operation Brona Ascend was, that Miko had dug into her private stash of book-making supplies to provide sketch paper, cover paper, glue, and string for the binding. She’d offered up an array of very pretty patterned paper for the cover for John to choose from.

“It’s traditional Japanese washi paper. I mostly use it for origami, but it has a nice texture and will make a nice cover for the sketchbook too,” Miko said, fanning it out like a Vegas blackjack dealer. “Don’t think you only have to pick one pattern, either. You can pick several patterns in complementary colors to make it interesting. Ronon dresses pretty plain, but he is an artist and has a good eye for color. I have a color wheel if you’re stuck.”

Miko smiled winsomely, and for a moment John wondered if she was going to bat her eyelashes at him.

He picked dark blues and greens and some golds for brighter accents, because those seemed like nice masculine colors for Ronon, but only after he’d made those selections did it occur to him that maybe those weren’t masculine colors on Sateda.

Making a book was a repetitive process, which was actually kind of soothing — folding the paper, stacking it, holding it firm in the frame, punching it, gluing the cover paper, and then sewing it.

John could do basic sewing on account of having to do emergency repairs on his own uniform in the field so it could pass muster, but the sewing pattern on the spine of the book was sewn in such a way not just to secure the pages but also to make it pretty. 

“There’s an easy pattern and a bit more of a complicated one, depending on how brave you’re feeling,” Miko said. “Once you know the basic iteration, it’s not too hard. I have a diagram for you.”

John studied the different options, as Miko had brought several journals she’d made previously as examples.

“I like this one,” he said finally, because he was a pilot and a guitarist and better with his hands than people gave him credit for. He wasn’t Lorne, but he was pretty good all the same.

Miko nodded. “All right. A couple of pointers — start here, and leave a tail of thread about this long so you can tie it off like so — and that way the knot is hidden.”

“Yes, sensei,” John said, a little dryly.

“You’re better at this than I thought you’d be,” Brona said.

John glanced at her. “Why?”

“Why what?” Miko asked.

“Brona says I’m better at this than she thought I’d be, and I asked her why.”

Brona said, “I didn’t think you’d be very good at sewing is all.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Why didn’t you think I’d be good at sewing? Because I’m a man?”

Miko frowned. “I thought the Ancients would be more advanced.”

“Technologically advanced is not the same as socially advanced,” John said.

“You’re not even that socially advanced,” Brona said, and pronounced very carefully, _“homophobia.”_

John rolled his eyes. “Whatever. There were ancient cultures that were open about homosexuality but still practiced slavery.”

Miko blinked. “What about homosexuality?”

John winced. “Never mind.”

“You make a valid point, though,” Miko said. She leaned over and peered at his work. “You are doing well. You are quite good at sewing. I do admit I did not expect you to be any good at sewing, which is silly, because Major Lorne is quite good at sewing. Soldiers and airmen and Marines are expected to be able to sew their own uniforms to an extent, correct?”

John nodded.

“I will remember that,” Miko murmured to herself.

John said, “Thank you for helping me.”

Miko said cheerfully, “Anything to help Brona ascend, Colonel. Rodney has been very stressed out about it, and a cranky Rodney is intolerable.”

It was John’s turn to blink. “Rodney has?”

Miko pressed a hand to her mouth. “Ah, I wasn’t supposed to mention it.”

“...Can I trust you not to mention this to Rodney?”

“Of course,” Miko said. “A girl has to have some secrets, and besides, Rodney doesn’t care about my journal-making, and sometimes I do like to annoy Rodney, even if a cranky Rodney is intolerable. It’s different if I’m able to make him cranky.” And she giggled.

Brona said, “Rodney worries about you. It’s very sweet.”

“Well, soon he won’t have to worry about me,” John said, “so hopefully he won’t be cranky.”

Miko said, “Once Radek and I are finished with our experiment and blow him out of the water, he’ll be cranky, and it’ll be glorious.”

“I thought you didn’t like him cranky?”

“There are different kinds of Cranky Rodney, and some are intolerable, and some are glorious,” Miko said. She sang to herself, _“I’m the biggest hit, I’m the biggest hit on this stage.”_

John decided that maybe his troops should be much, much more afraid of the scientists than they were, and maybe he should have Lorne issue a memo about that.

He managed to finish the book, and Miko inspected it, gave it her stamp of approval.

“It looks good! I’ll set it aside to dry, make sure the edges aren’t curling, and you can pick it up tomorrow, Colonel.”

“Thank you, sensei,” John said.

Miko beamed. “Operation Brona Ascend is progressing well.” She clapped John on the shoulder, and together they cleaned up.

The entire process had taken the better part of four hours, and by then it was lunch time, so they headed for the mess hall together.

Despite using the bone folder, John’s hands were sore, and also a little sticky, but he knew it was worth it.

* * *

“What did you need Miko for today?” Rodney asked, when John sat with him and Ronon at dinner.

“Working on helping Brona ascend,” John said. “We’re calling it Operation Brona Ascend.”

At that, Rodney cast a hunted look around. “Where is Brona?”

“Sitting in the chair where Teyla usually sits,” John said.

Brona waved.

“When will Brona ascend?” Rodney asked.

“Still have a few days,” John drawled. He looked at Ronon. “How’s training going?”

“Got the newest batch of scientists halfway to gate-rated,” Ronon said. 

John nodded. “Great.” He smiled at Rodney. “We still on for chess?”

“What exactly are you doing to help Brona ascend?” Rodney asked.

“This and that,” John said. “Don’t worry about it. Gotta keep up with my regular duties too. Everything will be fine. It’s all under control. When does Teyla get back?”

“Will you need my help?” Rodney asked.

“Eventually,” John said. “Maybe. Till then, you should focus on trying to beat me at chess. Trying.” He offered up one of his signature smirks.

Rodney scowled. Then he said, “Teyla should be back in a few days.”

John nodded. “Good.”

He figured he’d build the first big bed for her, since she could use a nice double bed for her home on the Athosian mainland. He’d been to her place, knew a double bed would fit. He could try his hand at some basic decorations, too.

* * *

John’s post-lunch appointment was with Dr. Ambrose.

“You can call me Pam,” she said, smiling. She was tall, broad-shouldered for a woman, with large, strong-looking hands. “I know, most people think of massage as a sort of sexy thing, but massage therapy is a very useful medical practice. Most people also think of massage therapists as tiny little Asian women, but having someone big and strong who can bring some weight and force into a massage is handy, so some of the best massage therapists are large men, but I hold my own.”

John nodded. “Thank you for taking the time to assist me, Pam.”

“Anything to do my part in Operation Brona Ascend.” She nodded in the direction of the stuffed bear someone had borrowed from Dr. Moon and placed on a chair in the corner of the office. 

“So you’re a licensed massage therapist?” John asked.

“Indeed I am,” Pam said. “I mean, I was selected as part of the expedition for my doctorate in physical chemistry, but I am also a licensed massage therapist.”

Having people who doubled up on skills was smart, John knew. It cut down on the number of personnel needed for the expedition, made the personnel more versatile and adaptable.

“Impressive,” John said.

Pam shrugged. “I like helping people. Now, don’t leave here thinking you’ll be a massage therapist in a few hours. I can, however, teach you the basics, so if a buddy of yours comes to you with a small knot in their neck, you can give them a bit of relief, stave off a headache. A lot of people in the lab have learned some tricks from me. We all spend forever hunched over our laptops and instruments, so we all have execrable posture and tension headaches as a result.”

“And stress headaches, I’m sure,” John said. 

“And also those stools are torture devices,” Pam said. 

“Have you put in a request to Major Lorne to get better ones?” John asked.

Pam blinked. “Major Lorne? Why him? Dr. McKay is the Chief Science Officer.”

“Yes, but Major Lorne oversees logistics for the entire base,” John said. “You want something extra special, you ask Lorne.”

Pam nodded. “I’ll bear that in mind. Now, the basics. Here we have our lovely volunteer, Dr. Zelenka, who is a prime example of a stressed-out scientist.”

“Thank you for saving me from Miko,” Radek muttered, face-down on the massage table.

Brona said, “Are you going to do this for Rodney?”

“Something like that,” John said.

Pam laughed. “We aren’t _saving you from Miko._ You’ll have to face the music eventually.”

“I have already faced the music. So much music. _I’m the biggest hit on the stage. I’m a boss. Dumb dumb dumb.”_ Radek groaned. 

He was stripped to the waist.

He had hair in the small of his back.

He was much skinnier than John had anticipated, beneath his uniform.

Brona said, “Rodney did mention he’d want a back rub. After sitting in his fancy bath.” She perked up. “Are you going to take a bath with him?”

John sucked in a deep breath. “Brona, I have to listen to Pam. Please, let me concentrate?”

“Sorry,” she said, ducking her head.

John turned to Pam. “Do you have any music Brona could listen to? She likes music.”

Pam reached out, turned on some soft, thrumming music, Celtic-sounding, a harp.

Brona lit up. “This sounds like the music my mother played.”

“Perfect,” John said. “All right, show me how it’s done.”

A massage was a technical thing, of course, and was a lot about technique, but also as much an art as it was a science, because John had to pay close attention to Radek and all of the unspoken signals he was giving about comfort and discomfort, the pain or pleasure he was feeling under John’s hands.

Pam was completely unselfconscious about rubbing another person’s skin and muscles, but John was very nervous — and Radek could sense it too.

Having Pam there narrating for both of them what John was going to do and how he should do it, what the technique should be and what it should accomplish, was actually very helpful.

By the end of the session, which took three hours, John had a basic sense of the anatomy of the upper shoulders, neck, and head, how the muscles and nerves were connected, which oils and lotions to use, and basic massage techniques, and how they worked, and why.

It was a lot of information to take in.

Brona had been blessedly quiet and patient, mostly swaying to the music.

Radek had almost fallen asleep at several points, but he was very relaxed and happy and quite satisfied with his free massage, and he left Pam’s office with a pleasant smile, his hair even wilder than usual.

“Think you can remember all that?” Pam asked.

“I might have to practice on Ronon,” John admitted.

“That man probably needs it,” Pam said. She clapped John on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

John thanked her, and he headed off to his own quarters to wash up before dinner.

“Dr. Ambrose?” Rodney asked, catching John on the way to the mess hall. “Really?”

“What about her?” John asked.

“She’s a second-rate physicist and a second-rate chemist all in one,” Rodney said.

“Who said I was consulting her for her science skills?” John asked.

Rodney narrowed his eyes, and John winced, because he really didn’t want Rodney to know what he was up to, because Rodney knew what Brona’s final burden was in the broad strokes, and if he did enough snooping, he could figure out what John’s final task was in the specifics, because he was a genius.

“Then —”

“Then I got a massage from her because having a teenage girl riding passenger in my brain is stressful,” John said.

“Hey!” Brona said. “You just told a lie!”

“For three hours?” Rodney demanded.

John raised his eyebrows. “Are you _timing_ me?”

“I keep track of my own staff, thank you,” Rodney said.

“It was relaxing and I fell asleep in my quarters after. Sue me,” John said, with as much indignation as he could muster.

Rodney peered at John some more. “Well, you don’t look very rested, so she must not have done a very good job.” And he swept past John and into the mess hall.

The meal was quiet, because Rodney was engaging in some petty silent treatment, and Ronon wasn’t a very chatty person on a good night. 

“Since no one is talking to you, I can talk to you, right?” Brona said, sitting in Teyla’s usual spot.

John sighed.

“After dinner you’re going to play chess with Rodey again, right?”

John nodded minutely.

“Make sure there’s some kind of entertainment for me,” Brona said. “And — teach me what’s so interesting about chess.”

Ronon still found chess boring despite John’s efforts — and efforts by other members of the expedition — to teach him about the game _and_ how to play it.

“Chess isn’t for everyone,” John said finally.

“Chess is boring,” Ronon said.

“You backing out of our chess game tonight?” Rodney demanded. “You forfeiting? Because that means I win.”

“No,” John said. “Brona was just asking me to teach her what’s so interesting about chess, and I was explaining that it’s not for everyone. What makes it interesting to one person makes it boring to another.”

Ronon waved his fork at Teylas’s empty seat — and at Brona’s nose. “They take forever to decide to make a move. It’s boring.”

“Rodney and I can play speed chess, to make it interesting,” John said. “There’s a lot of ways to make chess interesting.”

“Usually gambling.” Rodney rolled his eyes.

“What kind of gambling?” Brona asked.

John echoed her question before fumbling for an answer. “Strip chess or dares to be completed by the loser.”

“We will be playing neither of those versions of chess,” Rodney said firmly.

Ronon raised his eyebrows. “Strip chess?”

“Not in front of the children,” Rodney said firmly, fixing his gaze on Teyla’s empty chair and as a result looking at Brona’s legs.

“How does strip chess work?” Brona asked.

“I bet Brona wants to know how strip chess works,” Ronon said, and he actually grinned.

John stared at him. “What makes you think she does?”

“If I want to know, she wants to know.” Ronon shrugged and kept on eating.

“I do want to know,” Brona said.

Rodney shook his head. “I _said,_ not in front of the children.”

Ronon arched an eyebrow. “What’s that you always say about Sheppard’s country’s backward drinking laws? If you can die for your country, you can drink for your country? If Brona can die for her people, she can know about a racy version of a game.”

“That’s not even remotely the same thing, and also Brona was sixteen, not eighteen, which is not the age at which people can go to war in either of our countries,” Rodney said stiffly.

“Let me guess,” Brona said. “If one of your pieces dies, you have to take off your clothes.”

John felt his face heat, but he kept on eating.

Brona cheered. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I’m not going to comment on the issue further,” John said.

“You should just tell her,” Ronon said. “She’ll figure it out for herself eventually.”

“She will not,” Rodney said, “because we will play no such thing. We can stop by the archives and borrow a chess timer.”

John nodded. “You’re on.”

Brona leaned in and said, “You should totally play strip chess, though. That would be way more interesting by far.”

John said, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Didn’t hear what?” Rodney asked.

Ronon smirked. “I bet Brona wants to see Sheppard play strip chess.”

“I’m in perfectly good shape,” Rodney protested. “I stay gate-rated, same as everyone else.”

“You saw Brona’s type in Daithi,” John said quietly. “Pretty sure I’m not it.” He glanced at Brona. “Who’s your type — me, Ronon, or Rodney? It’s Rodney, isn’t it? You like scientists, right?”

Brona blinked. “Oh, you mean out of the three of you, who’s the most handsome? Hands down that’s Ronon. Don’t be silly.”

John winced.

“What?” Rodney asked. He sighed. “She said Ronon, didn’t she?”

“But you were in love with Daithi,” John said slowly.

“Yeah, because he was smart and sweet and adorable,” Brona said. “I loved him for _him._ Sure, there were more handsome boys out there, but looks aren’t everything.”

John snorted. “No one says that in real life.”

 _“I_ just said it.”

“You’re a hologram of a dead girl,” John said.

“What did she say?” Rodney demanded.

Ronon said, “She probably said she thinks I’m the hottest, but she was in love with Daithi because she cares about more than looks.”

“Unbelievable,” Rodney said. “The one girl who actually thinks like that and she’s dead. And she was sixteen.”

“Well, at least it’s not just in the movies after all,” John said.

“Movies?” Brona asked.

“Maybe tonight, instead of chess, we should watch a movie,” John said.

Rodney frowned. “Why?”

“Because Brona has never seen a movie,” John said.

“What movie would Brona even want to watch? Ronon hates watching movies,” Rodney said.

Ronon considered. “I like movies with music.”

“A movie musical, maybe?” John offered.

Rodney considered. “Not a Disney movie, because those are puerile and also terrible sanitized retellings of Christianized, misogynistic retellings of otherwise fun stories about brave, intelligent women.”

John stared at him. “I’d never have pegged you for the type to go in for the feminist hype about the revisionist history of fairy tales.”

“Have you _met_ my sister?”

“Point taken. What do you suggest, then?”

“Not a recording of a sports game,” Rodney said.

Ronon said, “A recording of a concert. They have those in the Archives.”

“I heard they made a pretty good Johnny Cash biopic,” Rodney offered.

“What’s a biopic?” Ronon asked, suspicious.

John turned to Brona. “Let me introduce you to the best music in the universe.”

“Johnny Cash is not the best music in the universe,” Rodney said. “Our other option is a movie version of a musical. They also made a movie version of The Producers.”

John shook his head. “Don’t want to have to explain Nazis to Brona.”

“Nazis are bad,” Ronon said solemnly.

“That’s right,” John said.

“Let’s go see what the Archivist has,” John said.

* * *

“Thanks to Dr. Naoe and his skills in information database management, here’s a list of the musical films in the archives,” the Archivist said, handing John a data tablet.

Rodney, Ronon, and Brona all crowded in close and peered at the list.

“What’s Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny?” Ronon asked.

“Awesome,” John said.

“No,” Rodney said. “Across the Universe is a jukebox musical. The Beatles would be good for Brona to hear.”

“Don’t think Brona wants to watch a movie about the Vietnam War,” John said.

“Ah.” Rodney scanned the list some more. “High School Musical? Brona’s a teenager. Jeannie says Madison loves that movie.”

“Say that again, but slower,” John said.

Rodney winced. “Right.”

Ronon said, “Repo: The Genetic Opera might be something Rodney likes. Science, right?”

The Archivist said, “Probably not, no.” Her expression was deadpan, but John could see amusement in her eyes.

“I don’t mind opera,” Rodney said. “I’m cultured.”

“John doesn’t like opera,” Ronon said. “He always sneaked out of the opera.”

“There’s not much actual opera singing in it,” the Archivist said, pushing her glasses up her nose, “although Sarah Brightman is in the cast. It’s about a dystopian future where people buy immortality through organ transplants, but if they can’t pay, the repo man comes and takes the organs back.”

“What does that mean?” Brona asked.

Rodney made a face. “Pass.

“Who are you picking the movie for?” the Archivist asked.

“Brona,” Rodney said. “John’s invisible ancient teenage parasite whose dying wish was to fall in love.”

“I’m not a parasite,” Brona protested.

“Rodney,” John said, tone warning.

“Perhaps,” the Archivist said, “young Brona would appreciate RENT. Musical, romantic, youthful without being condescending, with themes she can appreciate. No day but today.”

John looked at Rodney. “I’m not much one for musicals beyond the heavy hitters — Phantom, Les Mis, Cats, that sort of thing. You know anything about it?”

“It’s a modern remake of La Boheme,” the Archivist said.

“Oh,” John said, because he knew how that ended.

“Oh,” Rodney said, because he knew his classical music.

“What does that mean? That’s like one of those doctor noises Jennifer makes,” Ronon said.

“It’ll have pretty music,” John said. He smiled. “We’ll take it.”

The Archivist had John fill out a ridiculous number of digital forms before she let him take the DVD, and then they headed to one of the rec rooms that was set up for watching movies.

“You realize,” John said to Rodney, “that Brona has never seen a movie before, and never seen Earth before, and she will have many questions while the movie is playing.”

Rodney nodded. “Fine. Talk to your invisible chair.”

“I can get the stuffed bear if it makes you feel better,” John said.

“You think I need to cuddle a stuffed bear? What am I, five?” Rodney threw his hands up.

Ronon said, “People have been putting a stuffed bear on a chair and pretending it’s Brona so they know what direction to talk in.”

Several expressions crossed Rodney’s face before he said, “Fine. That’s not — a terrible plan. But a stuffed bear is weird. Just — use a shoe or something.”

* * *

They swung by the kitchen for snacks, then put one of John’s sneakers on a chair beside the loveseat that Ronon got to himself, by unspoken agreement, leaving John and Rodney the three-man sofa to share. Brona sat on a chair beside the chair with the sneaker, and John got the DVD player set up while Rodney made sure the snacks were arranged on the coffee table in fair reach of everyone, and then it was time for the movie to start.

“Oh,” Brona said. “It’s a holo projection. Only it’s in full color.”

“Yes,” John said. “A holo projection, but a recording of a play. A play where some of the lines are sung instead of spoken. You like music, so.”

Brona sat back and pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them. “I like this,” she said. “I only ever got to watch holos of battle simulations. Before the base was set up on my planet, I never saw holos.”

Because the Ancients were so technologically advanced, John had assumed that Ancient technology was widespread and readily available across the entirety of the Pegasus Galaxy, and that ten millennia of disuse and the ravages of war with the Wraith was what had made it scarce.

Between seeing what Brona’s planet’s battle armor was like and how they cared for their dead and the fact that they poured most of their tech into spiritualism rather than combat made John realize that technological superiority wasn’t the same thing as technological availability.

The good thing about watching a movie with Ronon was that he also had questions about Earth culture, so when Brona asked about New York City — because the film opened with the main character, Mark, talking about New York City — John could answer them and also help Ronon, though Ronon had heard about New York before.

Where John had actually seen La Boheme and knew the plot, he could see where the plot had been modernized, the character names had been modernized. Some of the names took a moment for him to figure out, that Angel was Schunard, but other characters he figured out by profession rather than name, though some professions had been altered to fit the new setting.

Some of the musical themes were similar to the original opera, as were some of the lyrical themes.

As soon as John learned that Mark’s lover had left him for a lawyer named Joanne, he realized that maybe showing this movie to Brona wouldn’t be a good idea, because she could get ideas.

Angel being a drag queen and also Collins the philosopher’s love interest would probably confuse Brona about just how viable John’s romantic prospects were with Rodney.

What was culturally acceptable on Sateda?

Rodney was surprisingly patient about explaining to Ronon about apartments and rent and landlords and the difference between HIV and AIDs. In the opera, Mimi had had some kind of unknown ailment that involved a whole lot of coughing and died.

Was Mimi going to die of AIDS? Would that upset Brona a lot?

John glanced at her. She remained curled up on her seat, knees drawn to her chest, chin on her knees, only occasionally lifting her head to ask a question.

During the upbeat numbers, she’d smile.

She did look quite scandalous that Mimi was a stripper.

“Wait, Mimi’s a stripper?” Rodney asked.

“A what now?” Ronon asked.

“She’s a dancer,” Rodney said.

Ronon nodded. “Roger said so in the song.”

“She’s an exotic dancer,” Rodney said.

“There are so many countries on Earth, every type of dancing is probably exotic,” Ronon said.

Rodney said, “She takes her clothes off for money while she dances! Should we let Brona watch this movie?”

John scooped up the DVD. “It’s rated PG-13. Pretty sure there will be no actual stripping. It’s fine.”

“How do you know she’s a stripper?” Ronon asked.

“In the song, Roger said _they used to tie you up, I didn’t recognize you without the handcuffs,”_ Rodney said.

“I thought handcuffs were what police used on criminals,” Ronon said.

“People use rope on criminals around here, don’t they?” Rodney said. “And they use rope for other things.”

“Hey,” Brona said. “I want to see if he lights her candle or not!”

John sighed. “Please stop bickering. Brona wants to see if Roger lights Mimi’s candle.”

“You know, when I watched the opera, the whole candle scene wasn’t nearly as innuendo-laden, but in the opera, Rodolfo totally blew Mimi’s candle out deliberately to get her to stick around,” Rodney said. “This time Mimi’s the bold one.”

“Welcome to modern feminism I guess?” John said.

“Why won’t Roger light Mimi’s candle? What is she looking for?” Brona asked.

“Remember when Roger was singing on the roof? About the drugs that made him sick?” John said. “Mimi also uses those drugs, and she dropped them, and she’s looking for them, and Roger knows she’s looking for them, and he doesn’t want her to find them, so he’s not lighting the candle for her.”

Brona nodded. “Oh. Because he doesn’t want her to die. He likes her.”

John said, “There’s a pretty wide margin between liking someone and not wanting them to die.”

Ronon said, “She has the same disease Roger has, doesn’t she? Because she uses the same drugs. The AIDS HIV thing.”

“Maybe she does,” Rodney said. “We’ll find out. Tell Brona to stop talking.”

“Brona has questions,” John said.

And then the scene changed.

“Can you tango?” Rodney asked John. “Since you grew up rich. You learned ballroom dancing, right?”

“I can tango,” John said.

“Wait,” Ronon said. “So — that woman. That’s Joanne. She’s dating Mark’s ex-girlfriend? Sucks for Mark.”

“Mark’s a pushover,” Rodney said.

“Is that a special kind of dance?” Brona asked.

“The tango is considered a very romantic dance,” John said.

She smiled at him. “You should tango with Rodney.” Then she frowned at the screen. “Why is Mark doing that dance with someone he’s not romantic with, then?”

“That’s part of the irony of the song, I think,” John said. 

“Wait, who’s that other woman they’re dancing with?” Ronon asked.

“Must be Maureen, Mark’s ex,” Rodney said.

“Damn,” Ronon said. “She’s hot.”

Brona said, “I can see why it’s a romantic dance, though, all tangled up like that, especially if you dress up like that. If two women can dance it, two men definitely can. You should totally dance it with Rodney.”

John could not respond to that comment, not with both Rodney and Ronon in the room.

During the scene for the support group for people with AIDS, John wondered if the Ancients had a cure for the disease or ones similar to it.

And then the scene changed, and Rodney spluttered. “You said there’d be no stripping scenes!”

“They’re in a strip club but she’s keeping her clothes on,” John said, but he winced. “Brona, cover your eyes. You don’t have to see, you can just listen to her sing, you’ll still know what’s going on.”

Ronon turned to John. “We never went to one of those places when we were on Earth.”

“It was my father’s funeral.”

Brona obediently covered her hands with her eyes. She said, “Do they have clubs like that where boys dance?”

John said, “Yes.”

“Yes what?” Rodney asked.

John just shook his head.

When Mimi busted her way into Roger’s apartment, John was prepared to bring the movie to a halt, because a PG-13 hook-up scene could get pretty racy, but he was unprepared for Roger to shut Mimi down, because of course he would.

And then John remembered what the Archivist had said, about the themes of the film.

_No day but today._

Sure enough, Brona sat up a little straighter as the song built, as other characters arrived and contributed their voices to the song, weaving lyrics around each other.

_Forget regret_

_Or life is yours to miss_

She turned and cast John a pointed look.

If John had thought that song was going to give Brona ideas, Angel and Collins’s adorable love duet on the street had Brona practically vibrating in her seat.

“You said homophobia was a big thing on Earth, but they’re two men, and everyone is really nice about them! Or is it okay because Angel dresses up as a girl? But Angel isn’t always dressed up as a girl,” Brona said.

John scrubbed a hand over his face. To Ronon, he said, “I think you can see that the way Mark and his friends live — it’s considered unorthodox and out of the mainstream. Most people would consider them strange. The way they live is hard, and that’s why they’re poor. Benny stopped living like them, and that’s why he’s rich now, and they consider him a traitor. He lives an ordinary life — he married a girl from a rich family, and he works a regular job, and he’s not an artist or philosopher like the rest of them anymore.”

Ronon nodded. “Yeah. He’s a tool.”

Rodney huffed. “Who taught you how to say that?”

Brona had a great time during the big group number at the café, and even Ronon smiled and swayed a little. He was smug when it turned out he was right, that Mimi and Roger had the same disease.

“Rodolfo was healthy in La Boheme, though,” Rodney said.

“Pretty sure this has already departed far enough from La Boheme,” John said.

When Angel died, Brona cried. 

“This isn’t how it went in La Boheme,” Rodney protested.

“This isn’t La Boheme,” John said.

“Who died in La Boheme?” Ronon asked.

“Mimi,” Rodney said.

“Well then Mimi will probably live,” Ronon said.

“Mimi’s not dying,” Rodney said.

“Right now,” Ronon said.

Brona’s eyes were wide. “I don’t want anyone else to die!”

And then Mimi _was_ dying, and Brona was very upset, and John could only sigh.

When the finale arrived, with all the major musical themes woven together into the final chorus of _No day but today,_ Brona burst into applause.

“Major Lorne would have a fit,” Rodney said. “I’m sure he has the next six months of his life planned, down to the minute.”

Ronon said, “Major Lorne’s not a tool. He can be spontaneous.”

John suspected Rodney was more right than he knew, but Lorne was helping him out in a big way, and he wasn’t about to bite the hand that fed him.

Brona straightened up, scrubbing a hand over her face. “That was beautiful. Thanks, John.”

So few people actually called him _John,_ let alone people as young as Brona, that for a moment John was startled. He said, “Glad you enjoyed it.”

Rodney said, “I’m not sure _enjoy_ is the right word. It was interesting, at least.”

“He was talking to Brona,” Ronon said. “I liked it. Better than a lot of the other movies you watch.”

“I guess we know what we’re watching on our next team movie night,” John said.

“I bet Teyla will like it,” Ronon said.

“Thanks for hanging out,” John said to Rodney.

“I’d prefer chess,” Rodney said, but he helped John clean up.

They parted ways at the door, Rodney to return the snack bowls to the kitchen, John to the Archives to return the DVD, because he’d borrowed it under his own name.

They weren’t even out of Rodney and Ronon’s earshot when Brona said,

“They made a good point. _Forget regret or life is yours to miss._ You should tell Rodney how you feel.”

John sighed and waited till they were in the transporter before he answered even though he could feel Brona’s eyes on him the entire way; she was practically vibrating with anticipation.

As soon as the transporter doors slid closed, he said, “That was just fiction. Life isn’t that simple. Rodney and I aren’t a pair of Bohemian hipster kids living on the edge of society whose decisions bear little consequence. Mimi and Roger could do what they wanted and pretty much only their friends were affected. The decisions Rodney and I make affect this entire base — and this entire galaxy.”

It sounded egotistical, when he said it out loud, but it was the truth.

“A whole galaxy? Yeah, right.” Brona raised her eyebrows.

The transporter doors opened, and John headed for the Archives.

He said, “One time Rodney blew up five-sixths of an entire solar system.”

Brona halted mid-step. “A _solar system?”_

“It was uninhabited, we’re pretty sure.”

Brona scrambled to catch up to John.

“Come on — your battleships could cross the galaxy in a flash. Our technology isn’t as good as yours was, but we’re catching up. And we’re at war with the Wraith too. I’m the commander of this entire base. Rodney is the chief science officer of this entire base. We can’t afford to be selfish.” John pushed open the door of the Archives, placed the DVD in the return box, waved at the Archivist — was there only one Archivist? — and headed back to the transporter.

“Why is being happy with the man you love selfish?”’

“Burdening him with the knowledge of my affection when he obviously doesn’t return it is selfish, first of all,” John said, “and second of all —”

He cut himself off, but the truth was, Teyla and Ronon and Harmony and the kids on Planet Kid deserved the best protection they could get, and John and his people were it, not because John was especially exceptional or talented, but because he had the chops, having survived as long against the Wraith as he had, with Ronon and Rodney and Teyla at his side, with all their collective experience and their functionality as a team.

“You should tell him,” Brona insisted.

“I should not,” John said. “I’m going to give him the gifts as required in The Book, and that’s all.”

Brona frowned. “What if it won’t be enough?”

John swiped a hand to open the door to his quarters. “It’ll be enough.”

* * *

The next day, John met up with Captain Saxton, who’d established a workshop that opened onto one of the balconies overlooking the western pier, which made for easy cleanup of sawdust, as long as no one from botany wanted it, at any rate.

Captain Saxton had sourced lumber, and he’d accumulated, over time, his own personal collection of power tools and workbenches.

“All right, sir, let’s work out a design first, and we’ll go from there,” Saxton said. He’d shed the outer layers of his uniform and rolled up his sleeves, and he had a sketchbook and some pencils. “Here’s the basic dimensions of a double bed.”

John stood beside him at the biggest workbench and watched him sketch out a rough rectangle, scribble in measurements. “All right.”

“You got a preference on joint types? Want them hidden or visible? I knew a guy who was obsessed with dovetail joints and always did them that way,” Saxton said. “Want a headboard? Foot board? Space for scrollwork?”

“Secure joints would be nice,” John said.

Saxton nodded. “That’s a given. Bed posts? Did you want to be able to turn it into a canopy bed? Talk to me.”

John considered. “This bed is gonna be mine, Teyla’s, so — a headboard to sit against would probably be nice. And a footboard for her kiddo to sit against.”

“Bedposts or no? You can have both.”

John considered. “Sure. Although will this make the bed super heavy?”

“Not too heavy,” Saxton said. “We’ll need some guys to help lift it, but we can make it in pieces and do the final assembly in her quarters.” He pointed to his workbench. “Sample bedposts. Got a design you like? I’ve got a lathe so you can turn your own.”

John picked a rounded design that looked classic and also sturdy, because he didn’t want to risk Torren impaling himself on his mother’s own bed.

“Anything else?” Saxton asked.

John shook his head.

“All right. Rule number one: measure twice, cut once.” Saxton handed John a pencil and a tape measure. “Let’s go.”

They worked together easily. Saxton was fairly laconic, showed John how to measure out the pieces for the frame and the posts, and then John was let loose to measure on his own. Once everything was measured, they cut it.

John had never used a massive table saw like that before, and it was mildly frightening, but it was also exhilarating. No wonder so many men enjoyed owning power tools. 

Once all the pieces were cut, Saxton had John clean and sand the pieces that would be hard to work on once they were assembled.

The work was simple but required enough concentration, and John’s mind didn’t wander too much.

Brona was, thankfully, very appreciative of how dangerous the power tools were, especially the first time Saxton fired one up, and she didn’t ask too many questions or pester John too much, content to just watch and listen.

She did opine that though Saxton was cute, her darling Daithi was cuter, and probably smarter to boot.

“You all right, sir?” Saxton asked, when they paused for lunch.

The project would take John several days, and he still had other duties to attend to.

“Yes, thank you, captain. Do I look like I’m not all right?” John bit into his turkey sandwich.

Saxton said, “You’ve just been a bit quiet and distracted and all.”

“Just concentrating. Learning something new.” John offered him a brief smile. “Thanks for taking the time to teach me.”

“Glad to pass on the skill. My old man taught me how to use my hands. Out here in Atlantis, figure some practical know-how is useful to anyone. Teyla will appreciate the bed, I’m sure. Her kiddo will enjoy the trampoline, at any rate.” Saxton smiled.

“Maybe Teyla won’t appreciate the bed,” John said, and they both laughed.

“What’s a trampoline?” Brona asked.

John said, “Ah, Brona wants to know what a trampoline is.”

Saxton explained it to her in rather wild terms, describing the antics of his childhood. He’d grown up with two brothers and a passel of cousins in rural Idaho, and from the sounds of it he’d spent his summer days on his family trampoline with them playing games that bordered on attempted homicide.

Brona nodded wisely. “I see you come from a strong warrior culture.”

John winced. “Some more than others.”

After lunch, Saxton departed, and John continued working on his own, though he paused to answer calls on the radio. Even though he wasn’t in command, he still had duties he could fulfill and requests to handle and questions to answer.

“You’re very smart,” Brona said. “No wonder Rodney likes you. You can figure out how things work and how to fix them even though you can’t see them.”

This she said after John rearranged the patrol schedule with Lorne.

“Well, I’m still the ranking and commanding officer on Atlantis. It’s just that, if there’s a crisis, Lorne’s in command, since with you running around in my head, my judgment’s a bit cloudy,” John said. “You could distract me at a critical moment.”

“I wouldn’t,” Brona protested.

“Maybe not deliberately,” John said. “But it could happen, and I can’t risk my people’s lives like that, so.”

“Watch your fingers,” Brona said.

John yanked the hacksaw away from his hand. “I think that’s a sign we should break for the day.”

Brona nodded. “It’s time for you to pick up your finished book from Dr. Kusanagi anyway.”

“Right.”

“Think she’ll tell us about the blue stars?”

“If she’s in a good mood, we can ask her,” John said. He put away the tools and swept up the sawdust while Brona hummed along to the music on the radio, an old Elvis ballad, and then they headed for the lab.

“How will we know she’s in a good mood?”

“By the music playing in the lab, probably.”

When they arrived in the lab, it was quiet, and all the scientists were working diligently at their own benches. Soft music, just above the threshold of hearing, played in the background.

“John?” Rodney turned to him, puzzled. “Is something the matter?”

“I’m looking for Miko.”

“Oh.”

Was it John’s imagination, or did Rodney look a little hurt?

Miko rose up from her desk and stretched. “Hey, Colonel, come on. It’s all ready. It’s beautiful. He’ll love it.”

“I hope so,” John said.

“He who? Love what?” Rodney asked.

Miko clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oops! I’m so sorry, Colonel. I wasn’t supposed to say.”

Rodney frowned. “Are you keeping secrets from me?”

John followed Miko to the door.

“I can make you tell me!” Rodney shouted after Miko.

“No you can’t,” she called back. “We’re civilians.”

And the doors closed after them.

“Sorry, Colonel.” Miko winced.

“It’s fine,” John said. “He’ll find out eventually once he sees Ronon using it.”

They reached the central craft hangout quickly, and there it was, Ronon’s handmade sketchbook.

“Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.” John picked it up, checked the evenness of the pages, the neatness of the stitching on the spine, ran his hands on the cover. The glue job on the cover was a bit bumpy; he’d have to make Rodney’s music journal smoother. Overall, though, it did look good.

Miko beamed at him. With her large glasses and tiny face, she looked like a little owl. She was kind of cute. “See? He’ll love it.”

“Thank you very much for taking the time to teach me.”

“Anything for Operation Brona Ascend.” Miko fired off a very nice salute; John’s drill instructors at the Academy would have been proud.

John tucked the sketchbook against his side, and he and Miko parted ways.

“What now?” Brona asked, trotting beside him.

“I’m going to give this to Ronon, obviously.”

Brona pouted. “You didn’t ask her about the blue stars.”

“What’s your obsession with the blue stars?” John asked.

“The song on the radio was pretty, and I want to know if blue stars are real,” Brona said.

“I can ask for the song to be played on the radio again,” John said. 

Brona lit up. “I’d like that.” She added, “I think the book is very pretty. Ronon will like it!”

John tapped his radio. “Sheppard for Control.”

“Go for Control,” Amelia said.

“I need a twenty on Ronon.”

There was a pause, and then Amelia said, “He’s in the gym supervising weight training.”

“Roger that. Thank you. Sheppard over and out.” John headed for the transporter.

Ronon tended not to use the weightlifting equipment himself, but he was always willing to be a spotter for the Marines he was training.

“What’s up?” he asked as soon as he saw John.

Brona made an appreciative noise when she saw all the fit, sweaty Marines working out.

John stifled a sigh and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn’t as if he’d never appreciated the sight of fit young men or women working out, and it wasn’t as if he’d never been a teenager, but he had bigger things to think about right now.

“Let’s chat for a second.”

Ronon raised his eyebrows, because he wasn’t one for chatting, but he lifted his chin at one of the Marines who was taking a break, and the man nodded and stepped up to spot for his buddy, and Ronon followed John out of the weight room.

As soon as the door slid shut, John held out the sketchbook. 

“Here. This is for you.”

Ronon accepted it. “Thank you.” He looked a little puzzled, but as soon as he flipped through it, he recognized the quality of the paper. “My other sketchbook isn’t filled yet, but thank you.”

John shrugged. “No big.”

“If it’s no big, why didn’t you give it to me in front of the others?” Ronon turned the sketchbook over in his hands, smoothing his hand over the cover, inspecting the spine. “Ah, Miko makes these.”

Brona said, “Ronon’s smart. He doesn’t say a lot, but he’s smart.”

Then Ronon eyed John some more. “If Miko had made this, she’d have given it to me herself. _You_ made this. Is this related to helping Brona Ascend?”

“Kind of,” John said.

Ronon said, “Brona’s last wish was to fall in love.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And you made me a gift.”

Brona giggled. “He thinks you’re in love with him.”

John sighed. “I got that, thanks.”

Ronon raised his eyebrows.

“I was talking to Brona,” John said quickly. “Look, I made that as a practice run, but it seemed a waste to just make it. Don’t tell Rodney, okay?”

Ronon’s expression turned knowing. “He’s gonna figure out what’s going on if everyone _but_ him knows what’s going on. He’s a genius.”

“It’s not a big deal. I’m just making him some presents, and then Brona will Ascend. We figured it out with Dr. Moon,” John said. 

“Well, thanks for the sketchbook. It’s really pretty.” Ronon hefted the sketchbook, looking amused, and headed back into the weight room.

“What now?” Brona asked.

“And now back to paperwork.” John headed for the nearest transporter. On the way, he tapped his radio.

“You’ve reached the all-request line for Radio Atlantis,” Eric said cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”

“Hi, I’d like to request the One Tree Hill version of When the Stars Go Blue and dedicate it to my neverending roommate, Brona, who wants to know if stars really can turn blue,” John said.

“Excellent. We’ll get that in the queue. Thanks for making a request, Colonel.”

Brona perked up. “So he’ll play my song?”

John nodded and switched his radio headset to the Radio Atlantis frequency.

Time to do so much paperwork.

* * *

When John arrived at the table he usually shared with his teammates, Rodney said,

“You forget that I’m the Chief Science Officer, and my underlings can’t hide anything from me.”

John said, “Except for the time they hid an entire whiskey still from you for two months.”

“Well, they hadn’t hidden it from Lorne, so technically they hadn’t hidden it from you, and since you’re my teammate, they hadn’t really hidden it from me,” Rodney said.

John stared at him.

Brona said, “Is he really a genius? Mostly he sounds crazy.”

Ronon said, “He whined at me till I told him, because he was sure I knew even though he didn’t know, because someone must have told him you came to see me after you met with Miko.”

“And you gave in?”

“It’s just a sketchbook,” Ronon said.

Rodney eyed John. _“Why_ are you doing arts and crafts instead of trying to get rid of Brona?”

“Hey!” Brona protested.

John said, “People _Ascend_ when they’re free of their burdens, and artistic pursuits are relaxing.”

Brona smiled. “That was actually pretty smooth. You’re a pretty good liar.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “Should you be good at lying to the man you love? Then again I guess you’re lying to him every day when you pretend you’re not in love with him.”

John dug into his food. He just wanted to eat in peace. He was getting harangued on both sides.

“Look, I talked it over with Dr. Moon, and we have a plan,” John said. “It involves performing certain tasks for Brona while maintaining my mental health.”

That was actually a pretty good line.

“Then what did you need Ambrose _and_ Zelenka for?” Rodney asked.

“I think Zelenka was just hiding from Miko and their endless musical feud and he got a massage too,” John said, and okay, the lies really were piling up.

Ronon eyed him.

Rodney considered. “He did look pretty happy and relaxed after.”

“Ambrose does give good massages,” Ronon said.

“Relax,” John said. “We’re still on for chess.”

* * *

This time they really did stop by Archives and pick up a chess timer. Brona trotted along, buzzing with all kinds of questions about chess.

“Since I’m a chess master,” Rodney said, “I’ll tell you all about chess. And tonight, I’ll show you how I’m going to win.”

Brona said, “Last time John won.”

For once John was quite happy with relaying her response.

But Brona was _excited_ about speed chess, watching them tap the timer and move pieces back and forth. She also thought she understood the game better than she did and stood beside the table, shouting out predictions that were utterly wrong but also very distracting, so in the end, Rodney did win, though still by a very slim margin.

“And _that,_ Missy, is how it is done,” Rodney said smugly, clearing away the chess board.

John rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him,” he said, even though it did rankle a bit that Rodney had won. To Rodney he said, “Her name is _Brona.”_

“Will you win the next game?” Brona asked.

“I don’t know,” John said. “Will you be yelling in my ear next time?”

She had the grace to look chagrined. “Sorry.”

Rodney frowned. “Are you saying you only lost because Brona was yelling in your ear the entire time?”

John paused at the door. “What? No.”

“You’d better hurry up and help her Ascend,” Rodney said. “You can’t keep living like this.”

For one moment, Brona’s hands glowed faintly. Why was it always her hands?

“See? He cares about you,” Brona crowed.

John resisted the urge to point out that he and Rodney were friends and coworkers and also teammates who’d saved each other’s lives on multiple occasions. Caring deeply for each other was not the same as being in love. Getting a teenage girl to believe that would be impossible.

“I’m working on it,” John said.

“Well work faster,” Rodney said.

John hurried out of Rodney’s quarters before they could devolve into an argument.

He was working as quickly as he could, but he couldn’t make the _Daedalus_ fly any faster than it was flying, because it was already traveling faster than the speed of light. He slept, he did paperwork, and after lunch he headed back to the workshop to continue work on the new bed for Teyla.

Once he got the entire bed frame put together, he radioed for Saxton, who showed him how to use the wood lathe to turn the bed posts.

“And if I wanted to do fancy decorative work?” John asked.

“I’d say baby steps, sir,” Saxton said. “You could do some nice molding on the headboard and footboard. You could do a nice paint job. You could do some nice inlays with different colors of wood. You could do some scroll work — we do have a scroll saw here in the workshop. Up to you.”

John considered. This gift was for Teyla and her family. He wanted it to look good, but he knew little about Athosian art and culture.

He did, however, know about little kids and what they could bonk their little heads and faces on.

“How about some inlays with different colors of wood?”

Saxton nodded. “Let’s sketch out a design and we can go from there.”

Standing side-by-side at the workbench and drawing a simple geometric pattern was easy. In the end, they decided to do something with big pieces that was a sort of abstract stargate. Big pieces meant they’d have less cutting and fitting to do, and it would be easier and less time-consuming to make.

Brona hummed along to the radio and watched them work.

“I think it’s going to look very nice. But what will you make for Rodney?”

They had all the pieces cut out and were about to start gluing when Rodney said, “This doesn’t seem all that crafty and relaxing. It seems complicated and stressful.”

John, bottle of wood glue in hand, turned. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Pretty sure that’s my line,” Rodney said. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

“What’s up, Doc?” Saxton asked, without the slightest trace of irony.

“What’s going on here, soldier?”

“Marine,” Saxton corrected easily.

“That’s not an answer to my question,” Rodney said.

“There are no soldiers here,” Saxton said, and John knew white mutiny when he saw it.

“Captain Saxton is helping me with a project,” John said. “Why are you here?”

“Because you’re supposed to be helping Brona Ascend and you’re not doing anything to help her Ascend and I’m here to make sure she Ascends,” Rodney said. 

John scrubbed a hand over his face. “Rodney, I’m _working_ on it.”

“You’re playing arts and crafts with Captain America over here.”

Saxton grinned to himself. “I’m Captain America? Cool.” He struck a pose and flexed his biceps.

“What exactly is it you’re doing?” Rodney asked.

“Can’t you just trust me?” John said. “I’m working on it?”

Rodney jutted his chin out. “Can’t _you_ trust _me?”_

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I have to do this on my own. No one can see Brona but me. It’s not like with Yuy, who could have Ronon help him kill some Wraith. It’s different,” John said.

“You said Brona’s last wish was to fall in love,” Rodney said. “You made a pretty sketchbook for Ronon. Who’re you making the bed for?”

“Teyla,” John said. “Well, her family home on Athos. I’m making sure Torren can’t brain himself or impale himself on it if he jumps on it like he’s bound to once he’s big enough.”

“And then what?” Rodney asked.

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“And then Brona Ascends?” Rodney asked.

“We’ll see,” John said. 

“So you’re in love with Teyla and Ronon?”

John snorted. “No. I’m just — keeping my hands busy. On top of the usual admin things while I’m stood down from gate team duty.”

Rodney eyed him. “Is there no way to speed this up?”

“No,” John said. “I’m waiting for supplies from the _Daedalus.”_

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

Rodney said, “Then are you going to make something for me?”

John said, “I’m busy. Get back to work.”

“You should make something for me,” Rodney said. He lit up. “You should cook for me.”

“Get lost, Rodney.”

“Ask Lorne what my favorite food is. He knows,” Rodney said, but he headed for the balcony doors.

“Everyone knows you like blueberry brownies and Salisbury steak. Get back to work!”

Brona said, “What’s a brownie?”

Saxton said, “Salisbury steak is delicious. Man has good taste.”

The balcony doors slid shut.

John’s heart was racing. He didn’t dare tell Rodney. He’d make the notebook for Rodney and have Miko deliver it. He’d have Saxton and the Marines deliver the bed. As long as Rodney received the gifts that John had made, everything should count for Brona’s Ascension, right?

Brona said, “He wants you to make him something too. He cares about you.”

“He just doesn’t want to feel left out,” John muttered. Then he cleared his throat. “Captain. Where does the glue go?”

“On this inside edge like so.” Saxton unstopped his own glue bottle and demonstrated. “Be generous. We can wipe off the excess before we sand and stain. Go wild, sir.”

John nodded. Fifteen more days till the _Daedalus_ arrived. Two weeks. He could make it that long, right?

Only the next morning, Dr. Moon asked to see him. John was supposed to check in with Ronon and oversee the final gate team certification physical fitness tests, but John veered away from the gym, tapping his radio for Lorne as he went.

“Sir?”

“Take over the gate rating final exams, will you?”

“Sir?”

But John knew Lorne was already leaving whatever task he was currently doing and heading for the gym.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Yes, sir. Is everything all right?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out. Over and out.” John arrived in front of Dr. Moon’s office and knocked on her door.

She called out for him to enter.

Brona immediately skipped over to the little meditation space and plopped down, admiring the furry rugs even though she couldn’t quite feel them unless John was over there experiencing them.

“What’s up, Doc?” John asked.

Dr. Moon gestured for John to have a seat and sank down in her own papasan chair. “I just wanted to check in with how you’re doing, with Brona’s constant presence. You’re the only one who’s had an imprint for longer than a few hours.”

“You mean everyone’s seen me talking to her and I look super crazy.”

“Also you keep reporting to Dr. McKay that you’ve been doing _arts and crafts_ to _maintain your mental health,_ and he’s worried about you and he wanted me to check on you,” Dr. Moon said.

John stared at her. “And you obeyed him? He’s not my mother.”

Dr. Moon caught his gaze and held it, leaned in. “Colonel, I realize that the nature of Brona’s final wish is quite specific and difficult, but I didn’t think you’d outright lie to your best friend over it.”

“He says he wants to help, and he’s being nosy, and there’s nothing he can help with anyway.” John shrugged. “I’m Brona’s Kind One, and _I’m_ the one bearing her final burden, not him. I’m doing it. He just — thinks I’m not getting my job done.”

Dr. Moon frowned. “He’s concerned about _you,_ Colonel.”

“Well, you can tell him I’m doing fine. I’m making very good progress on the practice runs for all of my gifts for him, and once the supplies arrive on the _Daedalus,_ I’ll be good to go.” John smiled.

“Are you having a difficult time? With Brona around constantly.”

“Other than her sabotaging my chess game, I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Brona called out from the floor.

“I know,” John called back.

Dr. Moon raised her eyebrows.

“Brona is apologetic,” John said.

Dr. Moon nodded. “I see.”

“Rodney and I were playing speed chess and she got really into it and was shouting a lot. Like people do at the television during sports matches. Only Rodney and I were the television.” John shrugged.

“I can see how that would have been very distracting for the only one of you who could hear her. What was she shouting?”

“Mostly predictions about which moves she thought Rodney would make and suggestions about which moves I should make,” John said.

“Does she even know how to play chess?” 

“Rodney explained it to her, as best as he could, with as much Rodney patience as he could, over dinner.” John smiled to himself.

“I see.” Dr. Moon rose. “Well, as long as you’re making progress, that’s what counts. But you don’t have to shoulder this alone.”

John stood, allowed Dr. Moon to see him to the door. “I’m not. Plenty of people have been helping me. Miko. Ambrose. Captain Saxton. Lorne. Also Dr. Peace and Dr. Bruno and Dr. Naoe.”

“Just not Rodney.”

“He’s helping indirectly. By accepting the final drafts of my craft projects, as it were.”

“I see,” Dr. Moon said, in that cryptic tone doctors had that John hated.

“Well, nice chat, got military things to oversee. Have a nice day, Doc.” John smiled and waved and sauntered out of her office.

John caught up to Lorne and finished overseeing the gate rating exams. All but a couple of the civilians passed, and all they failed were their firearms certifications. A couple more weeks at the range and they’d probably make it, so John wasn’t too concerned. The rest of the civilians could be assigned to teams, so John told Lorne to make the assignments and have the two civilians who failed be assigned to a couple of Marines for remedial marksmanship training, and then he headed to the office for some more paperwork.

“Why do you call it paperwork if you don’t use any actual paper?” Brona asked.

John made it a point to call in to the radio station and request the song she liked, and also some Celtic music in general, since she had taken a shine to it. “Because we used to use paper.”

Brona nodded and took over the middle of the office, dancing along to the music while John worked. She was actually a beautiful dancer, graceful and unselfconscious, her skirt flaring and swirling as she spun and twirled, catching John’s attention out of the corner of his eye as he started filling out annual fitness reports. He and Lorne had come to an unspoken agreement: John handled fit reps for commissioned officers, Lorne handled fit reps for non-commissioned officers, and the non-commissioned officers handled fit reps for the enlisted men.

As long as John made progress on a few reports each day, he was gaining ground. He’d set a goal to complete a certain percentage each day, and as soon as those were done, he could bug out of the military command office and head over to Saxton’s workshop and continue on with his woodworking project.

Was it just his imagination, or were people _watching_ him as he headed down the hallway to the transporter?

Probably not, come to think of it, since he was talking to Brona.

“I think Teyla will really appreciate it,” Brona said. “When is she coming back? She seems really nice, and really pretty. I’m sad I never got to grow up. If I had grown up, I’d have wanted to grow up like Teyla. She seems like the perfect combination of really pretty and really scary when she fights.”

“That she is,” John said.

He rounded the corner to the transporter.

And was pretty sure he saw someone with blue patches on his uniform reach for his radio.

Whatever. Dr. Moon had cleared him. He wasn’t crazy. He was working on helping Brona Ascend. He was the only one who could hear her, and if he ignored her and she went crazy, she’d definitely end up driving him crazy.

The workshop was empty, so John turned on Saxton’s little battered radio, rolled up his sleeves, and set to work. He finished the wooden inlay design, and then he set about getting it installed into the footboard and headboard, and then he continued assembling the rest of the bed frame so the bed posts were in place.

Once he knew what it looked like and how to assemble it, the boring work had arrived.

The soothing work.

Sanding and staining.

John found a stool, plopped down, and set to work. First the coarse grain, then the fine grain.

He had to pause and brush the dust and sand off the wood every now and again, but it was satisfying, feeling how smooth the wood was becoming under his hands.

In the background, Brona danced to the music.

John watched the swirl of her skirts and wondered how often she’d had the chance to just dance unimpeded in her childhood. 

“Was that what you wanted to be when you grew up?” he asked.

Brona paused. “What do you mean?”

“A dancer,” John said.

Brona frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“If there hadn’t been Wraith to fight. Would you have wanted to be a dancer?”

Brona stared at him. “That’s not a _job.”_

“Sure it is. You have to be really good at it to make money, but if you’re really good at it, you can make really good money. It’s kind of a short-lived career. You’re done at, like, thirty-five, but then you can teach for the rest of your life,” John said. He decided not to mention other forms of dancing. 

Brona shook her head. “No. This is just — frivolous fun. But after the war I would marry and raise a family and grow food. If I were intelligent I could be a scientist or an engineer, work far away on another planet, but people don’t _dance_ for a job. That’s not possible.”

It was John’s turn to stare at her. What had life been like on her planet, that she couldn’t imagine dancing for a job? Aimon had been a talented artist, and she’d considered Daithi an artist as a scientist. But a dancer was incomprehensible to her?

John tapped on his radio. “Lorne, who on Atlantis is a really good dancer?”

“Sir?”

“Brona doesn’t believe someone could have a career as a professional dancer.”

“Ah, Cadman was a tap dancer, but — Ten. On Fire Team D. He used to do ballet.”

“Does he have any videos of himself dancing?”

“That I’m not sure. I’ll find out.”

“Thanks, Major.” John continued working and watching Brona out of the corner of his eye.

A few minutes later, his radio came to life.

Lorne said, “Sir, Ten from Fire Team D has a whole library of his own pre-service performances, as well as some videos from his old dance crew, if you’re interested.”

“Ballet dancers have dance crews?” John asked. “Or is that a male ballet dancer thing?”

“He didn’t just do ballet, apparently, sir. He was kind enough to put the best videos, as personally curated by himself, on a flash drive, for your perusal,” Lorne said. “I put it on your desk.”

Of course Lorne had. 

“Thank you, Major. Say, does Ten want to be a dancer? When his service is done.”

“He says so.”

“Excellent.”

“If you say so, sir. Lorne over and out.”

John set aside the bedpost he’d been sanding and stood up, stretched. “Hey Brona, we’re going back to my office.”

“Why? More paperwork?” But she followed him, because she really didn’t have a choice.

“I have something to show you.” When he reached his office, Lorne was nowhere to be seen, but there was a flash drive on top of his laptop. John scooped up the flash drive and flipped open his laptop. “Pull up a chair.”

Brona hovered behind his shoulder as he sank down in his chair and fired up his laptop. “What are we doing? You usually do paperwork on your tablet.”

“On Earth,” John said, “people can be a dancer for a job. You know Ten, who helped your friend Aimon ascend? Once he’s done being a soldier, he’s going to go home and be a dancer. And I have some videos of him dancing.”

The files were arranged in alphabetical order, as computers tended to automatically do. There was Bad Alive, Come Back, Lovely, Moonwalk, Regular, Take Off, and Turn Back Time. John could only assume those were the names of the songs Ten and his dance crew were performing to. Based on the type of music Brona liked and the sort of dancing she did naturally, she’d probably want a prettier performance, right? Something more like ballet.

John pulled up thumbnails for each video. Usually Ten danced in a large crew, seven to nine men, but for Lovely it was just him and another man, wearing soft-looking sweaters (did people dance in sweaters?) and pants that looked tight but were probably stretchy and easy to dance in. They were in a room with a couple of trees and had a...giant window frame between them?

“Here,” John said, and started the video. “This is what professional dancers do on Earth. Maybe, after the war, you could have been the first professional dancer from your planet, traveling from planet to planet, entertaining people for money.”

Brona leaned in closer.

John had chosen well. The music was dramatic, sweeping, strings and piano, and then a woman singing. The video was dramatic, too. It wasn’t just two guys in a dance studio practising; it was a full performance. Their costumes were matching; Ten was in white, the other man in black; he was a hair taller than Ten. Was he also Thai? John couldn’t tell. 

It was the kind of contemporary performance John’s parents wouldn’t have been interested in, that teen John would definitely have sneaked out of the theater to avoid. But it wasn’t loud and aggressive. 

It was like the two men were two sides of a mirror, dancing opposite each other with giant empty wooden frame around them. It was kind of a cool effect.

“They’re so pretty,” Brona breathed. “Is that really Lieutenant Ten? He’s much prettier when he has more hair.”

There were two trees on opposite sides of the room, too, each cut in half. On Ten’s side the tree was full and blooming, but on the other man’s side, it was stark, skeletal.

Were they winter and summer?

Only winter was usually white and summer was, well, summer wasn’t black.

Was it?

John tilted his head, considered. What colors were the seasons in Thailand? White was death in Asian countries, wasn’t it?

Was there even a winter in Thailand? Did it snow in Thailand?

John could see Ten’s ballet roots in the way he pointed his feet, in his leaps and turns, and the man’s physical strength and grace were impressive.

Brona was enthralled, eyes wide. “Wow. He’s so pretty!”

“Well, he’s a professional. He probably had to train for many years to be able to dance this well, him and his, uh, friend.”

“Are they just friends? They seem like they’re in love, but they’re fighting.”

Which was not a terrible interpretation of the choreography, because that was how it looked to John too.

At the very end of the video, Ten and his friend were wrapped in a close, very tender-looking embrace, and John wanted to look away, because he felt like he was intruding on a very personal moment.

The final moment of the video was a shot of the two half-trees tied together with a red rope.

Red, John knew, was the color of marriage in a lot of Asian countries.

Brona clapped her hands. “That was lovely!”

“Well, that was the name of the song,” John drawled. “But there. See. You could’ve been a dancer. I’ve been watching you dance. You love music.”

Brona said, “It wasn’t an option on my planet.”

“Well, your planet is no more, but you’re still here, so it’s an option for you. You dance all the time when there’s music on.” John turned to her. “Brona, you _are_ a dancer.”

“You really think so?”

John nodded.

Brona considered. “Can I watch another one?”

“Which one?”

“That one! Bad Alive. Since it’s about being alive.” Brona rested her chin on her hands and smiled. “I’m so excited. Ten and his friend are such pretty dancers.”

This video was...not pretty.

The music was much more aggressive and electric, with electric guitars and a driving beat and John’s first instinct was to cover Brona’s eyes even though she wasn’t a child.

It was one of the videos with seven men, and must have been Ten’s dance crew, and apparently when he wasn’t doing sweeping romantic contemporary ballet pieces with his maybe-boyfriend he was doing aggressive hip-hop routines with way too much hip-thrusting for a teenage girl.

But Brona looked delighted. “Wow! This is so cool!”

Ten and his friends were wearing a whole lot of leather and smoldering at the camera and Ten was wearing a jacket and leather pants but no shirt and had an admittedly intriguing tattoo on his chest and — 

“Cover your eyes,” John snapped.

Brona blinked. “Why? It’s just dancing.”

John said, “This is too grown-up for you.”

“I could probably dance like that if I learned how.”

“You should not.” John scanned the files again.

Brona pouted. 

“Here. Moonwalk. The moonwalk is a classic dance on Earth, where I come from.” John clicked on the video, and this one looked like it was in a dance studio, and Ten and his friends looked like they were wearing track pants and t-shirts and regular dance practice clothes. “See, this is Ten and his friends training as dancers.”

“Would I have to dress like that if I trained as a dancer?”

“Well, depending on the type of dance you did, you might wear a skirt like you’re wearing now,” John said. He started the video, and the song was not a Michael Jackson song. In fact, this song was a pop song, less aggressive than the last song, and in Chinese once John could really hear it.

“So, is this the moonwalk?” Brona asked. “Do lots of people on Earth dance the moonwalk?”

“Only really good dancers,” John said. “There. See how they’re moving backwards but it looks like they’re walking forwards? That’s the moonwalk.”

Brona clapped. “That’s so amazing!” She turned to John. “You really think I could have been a dancer?”

John nodded. “Yeah. I think you could have been. After the war, if you’d trained, sure.”

“Really?”

“I’m pretty sure. Want to ask Ten?”

Brona nodded.

John tapped his radio. “Control, I need a twenty on Ten.”

* * *

Ten was actually in one of the rec rooms doing some dance practice when John found him.

“Sir?”

Since Ten wasn’t on duty, he was puzzled as to why John wanted to see him.

“Lieutenant. Brona was curious about her dance training and whether she, at age sixteen, had she survived the war, would have been able to train and go on to have a professional dance career,” John said, leaning against the table Ten had pushed against the wall to make space to dance in.

Ten nodded. “Sure. I started dancing when I was quite young, but some boys I knew started dancing when they were in high school and became very good dancers after only one or two years of training.”

“There, you see? You could become a dancer.” John flashed Brona a reassuring smile.

Brona bit her lip. “But could I really make money as a dancer? Feed my family?”

John turned to Ten. “Brona wants to know if she could support a family as a dancer.”

“Depends on the kind of dancing, but sure. Ballet dancers in professional companies make good money. If she could sing she could, I don’t know, join a girl group, maybe. If she was smart and managed her training cost before she debuted, and her group was successful, she could make really good money,” Ten said.

Brona tilted her head. “Could I watch you dance?”

“She wants to watch you dance, if you don’t mind.”

Ten shrugged. “I don’t mind performing at all.” He shook his limbs out, reached out, turned on his stereo.

The music that flooded the room was some kind of thumping hip-hop music. If Brona had been expecting more pretty ballet-style music, she was about to be disappointed, but her eyes were wide and she looked like a little kid who was watching a magic show, so John kept his opinion to himself.

John would have to give it to Ten, though. The kid had some kind of _fire_ inside of him, and when he moved, energy poured out of every inch of him. He was strong, he was flexible, and he was passionate.

And it was beautiful, in its own way.

Brona cheered loudly when the song ended, so John applauded in her place.

Ten offered a sweeping bow.

“You can’t hear Brona, but she’s very excited,” John said.

Ten bowed. “I know dancing is not considered a very masculine thing, in America, especially in the military. My grandmother loved Korean pop, and she let me watch a lot of pop concerts and music videos when I was little, and so now I love to dance.” He straightened up, shrugged.

“Well, you’ve worked hard, and it shows.”

“So why does Brona want to be a dancer?”

“On her planet, circumstances were such that dancing as a profession didn’t exist,” John said. “So I was teaching her a little.”

Ten nodded. “Makes sense. Where I grew up, really poor kids didn’t have hobbies, you know? They were so worried about how they were going to survive that they didn’t have a chance to think about other things. I know I was lucky, to be able to study dance like I did, that my grandmother cared about me enough to stand up for me when I wanted to learn.”

“Brona grew up in a time of war, and she didn’t have a chance to care about herself,” John said. “But now the war is over, and she has a chance to think about more than just the battle ahead. She can think of her own dreams.”

He thought of the first time he’d stepped into that alien memorial garden, with the giant trees and the rocks piled how, and thought, _You’re treading on my dreams._

Ten nodded. “Yeah. I hope she can release her burdens and Ascend soon, and not just for your sake, sir.”

“Thanks, lieutenant. Happy dancing.”

Ten inclined his head politely.

John turned and headed for the door.

Brona trotted beside him. “You think I’m still holding onto burdens?”

“I think,” John said, “maybe you should stop worrying about other people so much. I mean, you say your last wish was to _fall in love,_ right? But in order to fulfill that you tried to help Daithi ascend, and you’re trying to get me and Rodney to — whatever. But that doesn’t actually help _you,_ does it? What would help you?”

Brona’s gaze turned inward. “I don’t know.”

“Well, how about you stop worrying about everyone else for once and worry about you? How about you tell yourself the war is over and you can move on? It’s not about Daithi or Aimon or me or anyone else, it’s about you. Seems selfish, I know, but...the war is over. For you. Me and my people, we’re handling it. And you...head upward. And learn how to dance.” John made a twirling motion with one finger.

“But —”

“But what?”

Brona looked at him. “You and Rodney —”

“Are adults who can take care of ourselves.” John looked at her. “It’s okay for you to not take care of us.”

Brona bit her lip.

John reached up and tapped his radio. “Sheppard for Radio Atlantis.”

Eric’s pleasant tenor voice met his ears. “You’ve reached Radio Atlantis. What would you like to request today?”

“Brona’s favorite song.”

“When the Stars Go Blue, coming right up.”

“Thanks, Eric.” John headed for the nearest transporter.

Brona drifted along behind him.

John tapped his radio again. “Lorne, you wouldn’t happen to have access to lights that change color, do you? Like the kind they use in theater. That turn blue.”

“Like the kind that blue out at the end of a scene so actors can leave the stage or come on stage in relative darkness?” Lorne asked.

“...Sure.”

“There are some amateur thespians on Atlantis. I can source you some. How soon do you need them?”

“Just one. ASAP.”

“Roger that. Lorne over and out.”

John found an empty rec room and began pushing furniture aside to make space. 

“What are you doing?” Brona asked.

“Making room for you to dance,” John said.

His radio crackled to life.

Lorne said, “Sir, what’s your twenty?”

John rattled off his coordinates.

Lorne said, “Delivery ASAP.”

“Thank you, major.”

John tuned in to the Radio Atlantis frequency, because what he could hear, Brona could hear. 

“You want me to dance?” Brona asked.

“You can dance if you want to,” John said. “In this space.”

She frowned. “This song isn’t much fun to dance to.”

John wasn’t really a Tiffany fan either.

The doors slid open, and there was Rodney McKay, holding a little lamp.

“Lorne said you wanted this?”

John accepted it. “Thanks.” He plugged it in in the corner and turned it on. “How do I get it to turn blue?”

Rodney crossed the room and knelt beside him. “Here. Why do you need a blue light?”

As if on cue, the song on the radio changed.

Brona lit up. “This is it! My song!” And she moved into the middle of the room and began to sway. “Ask Rodney how stars turn blue.”

John leaned against the table and watched her move. “Rodney, how do stars turn blue?”

Rodney, who was about to leave, paused. “What? Oh, have you been listening to Miko and Radek’s endless feud?”

“Ah, no. Brona likes the song When the Stars Go Blue, and she wants to know how stars turn blue.”

“Well, some stars are already blue because they’re giant and super luminous — much more massive than the sun in the solar system we come from,” Rodney said. “Some stars are blue because they’re young and super hot. And some stars could eventually turn blue, as they burn out their hydrogen supply. But our universe isn’t old enough for that, not yet.”

Brona hummed happily to herself, twirling and spinning to the music, bathed in blue light.

She looked happy.

And she was glowing.

Rodney sat up straighter. “Is that — is that _Brona?”_

The song had almost ended when suddenly there was a shimmering of light, and there was Brona herself, skirt flaring around her ankles.

She turned to John, smiling, and said, “Thank you, Kind One, for bearing my final burden.”

He stared at her. There was a strange, glowing quality to her skin.

Somewhere in the background, Eric was saying, “And that was When the Stars Go Blue, the One Tree Hill version, for Brona.”

“I will always remember this. I hope one day you can dance.” And she was suffused with blue-white light.

She started to ascend toward the ceiling.

“Holy crap,” Rodney said. “I thought her last wish was to fall in love.”

“She thought so too,” John said.

They both watched her float higher and higher, and then she was subsumed in light — and then she was gone.

John’s ears rang, as if a bomb had gone off and he was left with nothing.

He blinked.

He felt hollow.

Rodney put a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”

John nodded, but he felt a little unsteady. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He crossed the room, switched off the blue lamp. “Let’s report to Woolsey, get me cleared by Dr. Keller and Dr. Moon.”

Rodney scooped up the lamp. “Yeah.”

* * *

“So the answer was dancing,” Teyla said, over supper the next night.

John nodded. “Who would have guessed.”

“You did,” Ronon said.

“I wish I could have seen her,” Teyla said. “She sounds like a remarkable young woman.”

“Well, back to business as usual,” Rodney said. “Thank the stars.”

“Did anyone find the alleged Wraith outpost on that planet?” Teyla asked.

John shook his head. “Nope. On to the next planet for us.”

Teyla smiled. “Thank you for the bed, by the way. It is very comfortable.”

Rodney scowled at John. “I still think I deserve a present.”

“Brona ascended, and that’s what matters,” John said. But the supplies from Earth were still on their way.

“Yeah,” Ronon said.

“You only say that because you got a present too,” Rodney said.

“Whatever. Chess?” John asked.

Rodney nodded. “You’re on. It’ll be a fair fight this time, no Brona shouting in your ear.”

John managed a grin.

In Rodney’s quarters, they set up the chessboard and some drinks, as well as dessert, as they’d opted to take it with them rather than eat in the mess hall.

Rodney said, “Brona did think that her final wish was to fall in love. Everyone did, even you.”

“So?”

“So you looked up the Ancient Book of Courtship in the database,” Rodney said, straightening his row of white pawns.

John, sinking into the seat opposite him, froze. “How do you know that?”

“Naoe’s right — I’m not the _best_ hacker on Atlantis, but I’m pretty damn good. And I’m still a genius.” Rodney didn’t meet John’s gaze as he spoke, carefully straightening his other chess pieces. “You asked Miko to teach you to bind books and Ambrose to teach you to give massages and that Marine to teach you to build furniture. According to the Book of Courtship, to declare your love you must offer three gifts demonstrating your intention to share your home, your body, and your heart. Furniture for your home. Massage for your body. A book for your heart, maybe?”

John said nothing.

Rodney continued, his voice calm and rational. “You made a gift for Ronon and a gift for Teyla not because you’re trying to court the two of them. No, that makes no sense. Those are practice runs, right? Who would the actual gifts be for?”

John cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter, right? Not anymore.”

Rodney said, “Lorne put in an order for more wood for a bed, so you were planning on making a second bed, and some nice massage oils, so you were planning on giving someone a nice massage, as well as offering Ambrose a restock in gratitude for her lessons.”

John’s chest tightened. “We playing chess or what? If you don’t want to go first, I will.” He went to spin the board around so he had the white pieces.

Rodney said, “Lorne put in a large order of staff paper.”

“So?”

“So I mentioned staff paper was hard to come by. And Lorne ordered decorative paper in the same size as the staff paper. Enough to, say, make a book out of.”

John kept his breath calm and even. He was a trained combat pilot. He could keep his cool in a stressful situation. He turned the chessboard around and slid a pawn forward. “Your move.”

Rodney jumped a knight over the line of pawns. “John, were you going to court me so Brona could ascend?”

“Give you gifts, yes. Court you, no.” John sent another pawn forward.

Rodney raised his eyebrows. “You were just going to give me extravagant gifts and expect me not to be curious?”

John shrugged. “Friends give each other gifts.”

“Do you want to be more than friends?”

John said nothing.

“You can’t hide behind _don’t ask, don’t tell_ anymore.”

John said, “You’re more interested in Dr. Esposito.”

“You think I couldn’t be interested in you?”

“You tend to be interested in the Sam Carter, Katie Brown, Jennifer Keller types,” John said evenly.

“I never said I couldn’t be interested in men,” Rodney said.

“You never said you _could.”_

“Well, you’re American, and you’re in the military.”

It was John’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “As you’ve always gleefully pointed out, _don’t ask don’t tell_ never applied to you. Unless you think I’d have been a jerk about it.”

It was Rodney’s turn to say nothing.

John said, “Brona’s ascended now. That’s all that matters.”

“Is it?” Rodney asked.

“It’s not like you’re interested in me,” John said. He reached out, tipped over his king, stood up. “Next time, just let it go, Rodney.” He started for the door.

“Wait.” Rodney hurried after him. “You weren’t talking to me. You weren’t trusting me —”

“And you went behind my back and snooped.”

“Because you weren’t getting anything done!”

“And yet I managed to help Brona ascend all by myself.”

“I was worried about you,” Rodney snapped.

“You have a funny way of showing it.” John opened Rodney’s door with a thought and swept out, his cheeks burning.

He ignored the way Rodney hollered after him.

* * *

John didn’t know why he was sitting in his office rewatching Ten’s dance videos. There was something weirdly mesmerizing about them, the flashy costumes and intense synchronization and the crazy leaps and formations. They were artistic; John would give him that. After a while, the sort of techno underpinnings of the music were repetitive enough that they were kind of hypnotizing, and John could tune them out.

And then that one video came on, the black-and-white duet with the trees.

It was such a stark contrast to all the other dances.

It was really beautiful.

 _“Why_ are you watching dance videos?” Rodney asked, stepping into John’s office.

“Brona liked them.”

“Do you miss her?”

“She was a constant presence, and now she’s gone. Not sure what she did while I was asleep,” John said. 

Rodney said, “It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I was — I was _worried_ about you.”

John could remember how excited Brona got, how she’d glow a bit whenever Rodney talked to him or got close to him. Obviously she was wrong about how Rodney felt about him; everything about her understanding of the situation between him and Rodney was highly subjective. She hadn’t even understood herself really well. But then she’d been a teenage girl, and John couldn’t fault her for that.

“Well, I got the job done, so no need to worry.”

On the screen, Ten and his partner finished their dance, embraced.

The woman and man sang, _Hello, welcome home._

John stared at the two trees tied together.

“Soulmates,” Rodney said.

John twisted around to look at him. _“What?”_

“Ah, in Korean and Chinese culture, soulmates are connected by red string.” Rodney pointed to the two trees. “They’re tied together with red rope. You know. I figure it’s symbolic. They’re Chinese, right? The dancers. Or at least...one of them is?”

“Why do you know this?”

“I told you, I’ve been subjected to various lectures on Korean dating, so I can enable ridiculous workplace romances,” Rodney said.

“Says the man who also engages in workplace romances,” John drawled, and was pretty proud of himself for sounding calm and not at all like Rodney mentioning soulmates — which was a silly notion anyway — hadn’t about given him a heart attack.

Rodney sighed, frustrated. “Look, John, I get that we’re both men, and we don’t like to talk about feelings, but what I’m trying to say is I was worried about you, and I’m sorry.”

John closed his laptop. He wanted this conversation to be over, but he didn’t want to be a jerk. “Apology accepted.” Because Rodney didn’t apologize easily.

“But I’m not sorry that I learned what I learned, because —”

John threw his hands up. “Should’ve known.” Because Rodney didn’t apologize easily.

“I’m trying to say if you’d given me those gifts I would’ve given you a candle and a bowl and a comb,” Rodney said. And then he spun on his heel and left the office.

John stared after him. A candle and a bowl and a comb?

And then he realized. He’d been planning on making courtship gifts for Rodney. In the Book of Courtship, there were rules about accepting and rejecting gifts, right? And what gifts to give in response. He rose to his feet, tapping his radio as he went.

“Control, I need a twenty on Dr. Bruno and Dr. Peace.”

* * *

John was fairly buzzing with anticipation as he stood in the Ancient Database room while Dr. Peace and Dr. Bruno navigated through the Ancient Book of Courtship.

“We’re sad we didn’t get to talk to Brona about her culture a bit more before she Ascended, but we’re glad she was able to Ascend,” Dr. Peace said.

She and Dr. Bruno stood side by side at the lectern that controlled the database. With their height disparity, they could have looked comical, but somehow they moved comfortably next to each other, like they worked with each other often. Dr. Bruno was deft at avoiding Dr. Peace’s elbows.

“It’s quite simple,” Dr. Bruno said. “A candle represents the intention to be with one’s chosen partner through all the dark times in life, a reciprocal gift for sharing your heart. A bowl represents the intention to share meals, a reciprocal gift for sharing your home. And a comb represents the intention to be together till your hair turns gray, a reciprocal gift for sharing your body.”

“So much easier for the other person, not having to be creative about their gifts,” Dr. Peace said, shaking her head.

Dr. Bruno turned to him. “Did Brona de-Ascend and leave you a candle or something?”

“No,” John said. “Her type was scientists. So, these gifts are exchanged, what comes after that?”

“Well, the exchanging of gifts signifies an intent to marry, and the couple would set a date,” Dr. Peace said.

John’s chest tightened, but he forced himself to take a deep breath. “I see. Thank you very much, ladies. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“No problem, Colonel. Glad to help.” Dr. Bruno waved.

John spun on his heel and headed for the door, and...now what was he supposed to do? Where was he supposed to go?

 _To find Rodney, obviously,_ a voice in his head said. It sounded suspiciously like Brona.

He tapped his radio. “Control, I need a twenty on Rodney McKay.”

* * *

Rodney stood on a balcony overlooking the west pier.

“Miko and Radek’s musical feud has reached new heights?” John asked.

“Worse: they’ve reached a consensus,” Rodney said.

“Dare I ask?”

“Do you like Gogol Bordello?”

“I’m not sure how to answer that.” John stood beside Rodney at the railing and looked out over the sea, the white-capped waves in the distance, at the blue sky.

“So, what brings you here?”

John cleared his throat. “Ah, if you’d given me a candle, bowl, and comb, I’d have accepted.”

Rodney turned to him. “You mean —?”

John nodded. “I mean I —”

“Can I kiss you?” Rodney asked.

John had dreamed of kissing Rodney a thousand times but never imagined he’d actually get to. All he could do was nod. Rodney reached out, curled his hand around the back of John’s neck, and John leaned in, closed his eyes.

_Hello, welcome home._

* * *

“Aren’t you glad I made a double bed?” John asked, sprawled beside Rodney.

Rodney hummed drowsily and tucked himself against John’s side. “Your bigger bed and my nicer prescription mattress really are an excellent combination. A wise decision for our household.”

There was no rule that married couples couldn’t work on Atlantis together.

There was also no rule that John and Rodney couldn’t be married, after John switched his official home state back in America to a different state.

“I still can’t believe you were just going to make all these elaborate gifts and then just _not_ tell me how you felt,” Rodney said.

“That was _six months_ ago. Are you never going to let it go?” John sighed but buried his face against Rodney’s neck, inhaling the warm scent of his skin.

“I think I’m more insulted that you thought I wouldn’t figure it out. I’m a genius. Smartest man in two galaxies.”

“I was in love with you for years before that and you didn’t figure it out, so.” 

“Well, it wasn’t like I was never attracted to you, either,” Rodney protested.

“You dated so many women.”

“Like you didn’t!”

“I had one picnic with Chaya, and also that one alien princess showed up in my room and took off her clothes. And, okay, I was stuck in a time bubble for six months. But I never bought a _ring_ for any of those women.”

“Well, I would’ve bought a ring for you,” Rodney muttered. “I _did_ buy a ring for you.”

Even though plenty of people on active duty wore wedding rings, John wore the ring Rodney had given him on his chain with his tags, because it was safer there. John smiled down at the gold band. “I know. And I’m glad you did.”

“No more Ancient women for you.”

“It was an Ancient woman who helped us get together.”

“John —”

“I love _you,_ Rodney McKay,” John said. “And you know it.”

“I do,” Rodney said, but he was pouting a little. He turned and pressed a kiss to John’s forehead. “I love you too, John Sheppard. Now, we should sleep. Gonna be a long day tomorrow. Naoe thinks he’s finally cracked the code on those memorial pedestals and there’s a way to help those spirits Ascend without them possessing an individual.”

“Yeah?”

“Each person’s recording can be put onto a computer and accessed like a database, so people can help spirits Ascend, but everyone can see the imprint and interact with it,” Rodney said. “Gotta go back to the planet and get a test subject and give it a whirl.”

“I hope Brona’s happy, wherever she is. And dancing,” John said.

Rodney slid a hand over John’s hip. “Wanna dance?”

“You _just_ said we had to get to sleep.”

Rodney kissed John. “I can drink lots of coffee.”

John chuckled into the kiss. “All right. I’ll always dance with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Miko and Radek's musical feud:
> 
> [When the Stars Go Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo5iMvJs6VE) \- One Tree Hill version
> 
> [Doped Up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6QPMr58JfU) \- Big D & The Kids Table
> 
> [Cherry Bomb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkuHLzMMTZM) \- NCT 127
> 
> Ten's dance video:
> 
> [Lovely](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ovHSQwp1n0) \- the pretty one, with the trees


End file.
